On February 5, 2003, the Secretary of State of the United States Colin Powell gave a PowerPoint presentation to the United Nations Security Council asserting that Iraq was in violation of UN Security Resolution 1441 and was in the process of producing chemical weapons of mass destruction. Powell stated that Iraq had repeatedly refused to work with inspectors from UNMOVIC and IAEA and citing U.S. intelligence reports, was producing WMD's and was involved with terrorism, all in violation of Resolution 1441.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called the presentation strong and thorough, urged Iraqi leadership to comply with Resolution 1441, and stated that he did not think war was inevitable. The validity of the cited intelligence reports was called into question with Powell later stating his speech was a "great intelligence failure" and calling it a "blot" on his reputation.
On February 5, 2003, Powell appeared before the UN to prove the urgency to engage a war with Iraq. In 2016, Powell would say, "[A]t the time I gave the speech on Feb. 5, the president had already made this decision for military action." Powell was selected to deliver the speech based on his credibility, and he stated in 2016 that it had been written by the vice president's office:<blockquote>The speech supposedly had been prepared in the White House in the United States National Security Council. But when we were given what had been prepared, it was totally inadequate, and we couldn't track anything in it. When I asked Condoleezza Rice, the national security advisor, where did this come from, it turns out the vice president's office had written it.</blockquote>CIA analyst Nada Bakos has stated that the speech's language differed from what the CIA prepared for Powell and from the copies the CIA received in advance of the presentation.
Powell claimed that Iraq harbored a terrorist network headed by al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (in a small region controlled by Ansar al-Islam). He also claimed that Iraqis visited Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and provided training to al-Qaeda members, although thousands of Arabs from many countries did the same. US intelligence agencies have found no evidence of any substantive collaboration between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
Mohammed Aldouri, Iraqi ambassador to the UN denied the allegation saying they were "utterly unrelated to the truth."Ansar al Islam invited 20 journalists to a compound that should have been a 'poison factory'.
Although the presentation failed to change the fundamental position of the Security Council, including France, Russia, China, and Germany, Powell succeeded in hardening the overall tone of the United Nations towards Iraq. While Colin Powell's statement to the UN may have been accepted as proof by many in the US, this was not the case in Europe.
Powell himself stated later: "I, of course, regret the U.N. speech that I gave, which became the prominent presentation of our case. But we thought it was correct at the time. The President thought it was correct. Congress thought it was correct." "Of course I regret that a lot of it turned out be wrong," he said.
Powell's Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson later said that he had inadvertently participated in a hoax on the American people in preparing Powell's erroneous testimony before the United Nations Security Council.
David Zarefsky noted that the speech mainly relied on the argument from ignorance.
The Guardian dubbed the speech a decisive moment in undermining the credibility of the United States.
The New York Times Magazine considered the speech one of the most indelible public moments of the Bush administration.
FAIR analyzed the media coverage of the week before and the week after the presentation and urged the media to broaden their coverage.
In a 2005 interview, Powell stated that he did not lie because he did not know the information was false.