Photo: ELISE AMENDOLA, AP
Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2005
Colin Powell used a drawing to show the U.N. Security Council that Iraq had a mobile weapons lab. A congressional staffer on intelligence later said, "A drawing isn't evidence. it's hearsay."
Most Corrupted Bush Cabinet Member
COLIN POWELL
Before the Iraq invasion, Secretary of State Colin Powell warned the wartime president who'd never fought in a war about the Pottery Shack rule: "If you break it, you own it." General Powell got much of the credit for U.S. success in the first Gulf War, but his unenthusiasm for the Iraq invasion--based on a lifetime of distinguished military experience--left him marginalized in the Bush White House.
No one will ever really know what Powell was thinking as he went against his own better judgment and made the administration's trumped up case for war to the United Nations on February 5, 2003. Powell warned that the mobile weapons labs described by since-discredited informant "Curveball" could kill thousands of people, offering as evidence a drawing of a truck (left).
His conflicted work done, Powell retired immediately after the 2004 election. Cartoonist Aaron McGruder ruefully summed up Powell's Curveball-fueled finale in the comic strip Boondocks: "Colin Powell will be sorely missed...Who else could tell lies to the whole world with such dignity and integrity?"¹
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¹ L.A. Times, November 27, 2004
"Most Corrupt Appointees" describes appointees shown on Most Corrupt.com, not a ranking
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