JUST BETWEEN YOU, ME & THE WALLS

Transcripts raise alarm across Nato (Dan Plesch and Richard Norton-Taylor, June 2, 2003, The Guardian)

Transcripts of a private conversation between Jack Straw and Colin Powell expressing serious doubts about the reliability of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programme are being circulated in western government circles where there is a growing feeling that officials were deceived into supporting the Iraq war.

A document known as the "Waldorf transcripts" - after the New York hotel where the US secretary of state was staying before making a crucial speech to the UN security council earlier this year - is described by an official of one Nato country as "extremely useful".

The description is used in a paper seen by the Guardian as part of an effort among Nato allies to "rein in some of the less acceptable policies of the Bush administration".

Mr Straw yesterday denied he had had a private meeting with Mr Powell on February 4, the eve of the security council meeting where Mr Powell gave a dramatic presentation of intelligence material purporting to reveal hard evidence that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons.

The foreign secretary said he did not arrive in New York until the day of the crucial security council meeting.

Diplomatic sources remain adamant...

Gotta admit it would be sweet if Colin Powell--just about the only Republican the Left trusts, to the point where folks like Mary McGrory changed their minds about the war after this presentation--turned out to have been hoodwinking everybody. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 2, 2003 7:38 PM