Yet it was precisely Powell’s public image as the sane, wise one in the post-9/11 room that was to prove so useful for the ‘crazies’. They needed someone to make the case for the war with Iraq. They needed someone with the public credibility to stand up – in this case, in front of the United Nations Security Council – and say why invading a sovereign nation, with no obvious connection to al-Qaeda or 9/11, was the right thing to do. And that man, everyone seemed to agree, was Powell. ‘You’re the most popular man in America. Do something with that popularity’, Cheney told him. Powell was said to be reluctant, but admitted that it was ‘important’ he ‘kept the job’…

Powell’s credulity does not absolve him of responsibility for what happened in Iraq. He supported the invasion at the time. He really was prepared to wage war against a sovereign nation if it had what numerous other sovereign nations have – namely, weapons of mass destruction.

In many ways, Powell’s position was not too far from that of many of the war’s critics at the time. Most of them did not oppose the principle of interfering in another state’s affairs. They merely opposed its presentation. They wanted the interference to have the veneer of UN legitimacy. Indeed, they wanted what Powell desperately tried to give them that day – evidence of Hussein’s perfidy, ideally followed by a big legitimising thumbs-up for invasion from the UN.