"what did you expect him to say - that both were totally ineffective?"

I expect him to tell the truth, Teribus.
Are you suggesting that every thing that was said pre 9/11 was designed to hoodwink the public, and that after that date, everybody decided to come clean?
How do we know, in that case, that everything that has been said since is the truth.
In a court of law, the defendant that would mislead so, would be charged with perjury, and the 'new' evidence would be deemed inadmissable.
And Powell took an oath, just like Bush did
We should expect our leaders to tell the truth.
Isn't that what all this hoo ha is about in the first place?
Do you regularly vote for people who keep telling you lies all the time?

I'm surprised, incidentally, that you would let slip something like "remember he was talking to the press"
The press is normally our only way of knowing what goes on in the world. Surely you are not telling us that you condone the public being lied to, whenever it suits our politicians to do so?

By the way, I never knew that Hitler had been brought to book.
I heard that he massacred at least 6 million people, and occupied many lands, before he committed suicide. Unless you believe that he ended his days in Argentina (in which case, he was never brought to book). He certainly was a greater aggressor to England, than Saddam was.
I never read in any newspaper of an Iraqi version of the Battle of Britain.

Maybe there was, and Powell didn't tell the Press.

I see, though, that we are repeating things that have already been covered, Teribus; I think the whole World accepts at this point, that the 'Allies' 'helped' Saddam up until at least the end of the Iran/Iraq war.
Nothing much changed in Iraq post 9/11. Certainly not Al Quaeda-wise. We know that idealogically Saddam and Bin Laden were as far apart as they could possibly be in the Muslim World. They may have had a common enemy in America, but each kept their own counsel on the matter, and Iraq was no more a threat to the internal security of the USA, than it was pre 9/11.
Post 9/11, the USA was understandably put on a war footing, and the attack in Afghanistan was, in my opinion, an understandable reaction.
But 9/11 was a watershed for Al Quaeda, only, and Saddam Hussein, repulsive as the man is, was guilty of threatening only his own people.

Like many other repulsive regimes the USA still chooses to support and arm.
And that we turn a blind eye to.