Fisk, Powell at the General Assembly

In the latest excerpt from Robert Fisk's new book, "The Great War for Civilisation: the Conquest of the Middle East," he recalls Colin Powell's U.N. performance in February 2003:

Because Colin Powell was supposed to be the good cop to the Bush-Rumsfeld bad cop routine, one wanted to believe him. The Iraqi officer's telephone-tapped order to his subordinate - "Remove 'nerve agents' whenever it comes up in the wireless instructions" - seemed to indicate that the Americans had indeed spotted a nasty new line in Iraqi deception. But a dramatic picture of a pilotless Iraqi aircraft capable of spraying poison chemicals turned out to be the imaginative work of a Pentagon artist. And when Secretary Powell started talking about "decades" of contact between Saddam and al-Qa'ida, things went wrong for the "General ". Al-Qa'ida only came into existence in 2000, since bin Laden - "decades" ago - was working against the Russians for the CIA, whose present-day director was sitting grave-faced behind Mr Powell. It was the United States which had enjoyed at least a "decade" of contacts with Saddam.