On this day in ...... 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell urged the Security Council to authorize military intervention in Iraq. In a statement that would prove unsuccessful, Powell claimed that intervention was necessary because the country, then led by Saddam Hussein, possessed chemical (left) and other weapons of mass destruction. (image credit) It's a claim that later Powell admitted "misled.") Most intriguing: Though Powell's statement can be found at nongovernmental sites like CNN.com and YouTube, a Google search suggests that all official
records have been removed from the web. See, e.g., here.... 2008, is Día de la Constitución in Mexico (coat of arms at right). The national holiday commemorates the 1917 proclamation of the Mexican Constitution. According to this website, it's "considered by many to be one of the most radical and comprehensive constitutions in modern political history."
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Here are the official archived copies, White House and State Department pages, of Colin Powell, his U.N. Security Council presentation (February 5 2003): http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html, http://2001-2009.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/17300.htm and here, links to broadcasters, their video/audio (BBC, CBC, ABC, PBS, NPR): http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/iraq-wmd-timeline-2003.html#30205unsc
The U.N. deleted its webcasts, for 2002 and 2003, their links haven't worked in years: http://www.un.org/webcast/sc2003.html, http://www.un.org/webcast/2003a.html
Troublesome, because they documented -- especially media stakeouts, the press briefings in the Security Council lobby -- three fatal facts (fatal to the defense, in a criminal prosecution):
(1) Statements by Sergei Lavrov (Russian U.N. ambassador) and others, that they had seen no evidence of any WMD in Iraq (same as they've been saying now, for years, about Iran and it's mythical nuclear weapons program).
(2) The parole evidence rule, and estoppel, the oral agreement by the vast majority of the members of the Security Council, at the time of its adoption, that the ambiguity in S/Res/1441 (drafted by the U.S.) means a second resolution is necessary to authorize any attack on Iraq.
(3) The second resolution (March 2003), the U.S. promised to table and then didn't, it did not command support, only the members of the prima facie criminal enterprise would have voted for it (U.S., U.K., Spain, Bulgaria), and none of the rest (France, China, Russia, Germany, Pakistan, Syria, Mexico, Chile, Cameroon, Angola, Guinea), but U.S. officials lied to the public, that it would have passed, but for France's veto, a double lie, because France's "no" vote would not have been a veto, there were not the 9 "yes" votes necessary to pass the second resolution, at that time, necessary to label a "no" vote, a veto.
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