Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is still not pleased with former Secretary of State Colin Powell's endorsement for President Barack Obama's second term.
Speaking to National Review's Robert Costa on Friday, he said, "Colin Powell, interestingly enough, said that Obama got us out of Iraq. But it was Colin Powell, with his testimony before the U.N. Security Council, that got us into Iraq."
McCain blasted Powell on Fox News Radio's "Kilmeade & Friends" Thursday for endorsing Obama for reelection. "Well, I’m just saddened because, you know, I used to be a great admirer of Colin Powell," he said. "We were friends. I think one of the sad aspects of his career is going to the United Nations Security Council and telling them things about Iraq that were absolutely false."
"All I can say is that Gen. Powell, you disappoint us and you have harmed your legacy even further by defending what has clearly been the most feckless foreign policy in my lifetime," he continued.
McCain was an early advocate for attacking Iraq. On Oct. 18, 2001, he spoke about the "second phase" after Afghanistan. "The second phase -- if I could just make one, very quickly -- the second phase is Iraq. There is some indication, and I don't have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may -- and I emphasize may -- have come from Iraq."
On Feb. 2, 2002, he said in Munich, "Terrorist training camps exist on Iraqi soil, and Iraqi officials are known to have had a number of contacts with al Qaeda. These were probably not courtesy calls," he said. "Americans have internalized the mantra that Afghanistan represents only the first front in our global war on terror. The next front is apparent, and we should not shrink from acknowledging it."
McCain voted in October 2002 to authorize use of force in Iraq.
On Feb. 13, 2003, he wrote an op-ed about Iraq titled "Delay can be dangerous."
"Sept. 11, 2001 showed that al-Qaeda is a grave threat. Saddam Hussein has the ability to make a far worse day of infamy by turning Iraq into a weapons assembly line for al-Qaeda's network," he wrote. "Does anyone really want to vouch for Saddam, a pathological risk-taker with a history of violent aggression and an enormous stockpile of the world's worst weapons, when terrorists could help him attack us without fingerprints?"
Powell's famous 2003 speech in front of the U.N. Security Council about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction lent much credibility to the case for invading the country, but Powell has since called the speech a "blot" and a "failure."
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