NEW YORK (Sputnik) –
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan never accepted the U.S. claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and opposed the Bush administration’s approach to the Iraq crisis, according to a former adviser.
“I do not believe Kofi Annan ever agreed with the position of the United States on its handling of the Iraqi crisis and in particular on its assertion that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction,” the former advisers told Sputnik on condition of anonymity.
Kofi Annan, the source added, never supported the pretexts and misinformation provided to justify the invasion and destruction of Iraq.
It took a huge amount of courage and leadership for the then-UN secretary general to go against the interests of the most powerful country at the United Nations, the ex-adviser said.
The source also pointed out that Kofi Annan did everything in his power to prevent the bombing of Iraq and called the war illegal.
Sunday marked 20 years since then-secretary of state Colin Powell delivered his infamous speech at the UN Security Council outlining the Bush administration’s case that Baghdad possessed weapons of mass destruction, which provided the crucial pretext for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Six weeks after Powell’s address, the United States and a group of allies known as the “coalition of the willing” invaded Iraq in March of 2003.
A CIA study delivered to Congress the following fall said that there were no WMD in Iraq at the time of the U.S. attack. Later, Powell would call the remark a “blot” on his record and a major intelligence gaffe.
Even though WMDs were never discovered, the war in Iraq continued until 2011.