Today I watched Vice Admiral Charles Style tell the world that the "Cornwall 15" had been ambushed in Iraqi territorial waters. The Iraq/Iran boundary in that part of the world is disputed, so it would not surprise me to see the Iranians come up with a different interpretation. Whoever is right the government has certainly ratcheted up the diplomacy. 
As I was watching the Vice Admiral with his back-projected map, I thought of Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council in February 2003.
Remember when he shook that phial of "anthrax" with these words?
"Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little bit about this amount--this is just about the amount of a teaspoon--less than a teaspoon full of dry anthrax in an envelope shutdown the United States Senate in the fall of 2001. This forced several hundred people to undergo emergency medical treatment and killed two postal workers just from an amount just about this quantity that was inside of an envelope."
Powell's presentation was, of course, shown to be so much drivel. Now, he is embarrassed about what he said.
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