Actually, from the faces I'm not at all sure they did have copies of the report in advance. Straw and Powell looked gobsmacked as Blix went on, failing to deliver what they wanted.

And the commentators on the box - mostly defence and political correspondents - were all talking in those kind of terms, about how plans which had been drawn up in the expectation that Blix would say things which could be used plausibly to justify a move to war had been severely damaged. And they were commenting on ho wthye had actually seemed to be discarding prepared speeches, and scribbling notes as Blix went on.

Powell is a team player. I'm sure that he would see his own personal views as relatively unimportant when it comes to the crunch. A combination of a military chain of command way of looking at things, and a professional hired hand approach, like a lawyer. Or a senior Civil Servant. None of these would in the final analysis be likely to consider resigning even if they disagreed with the decision of the person whose job it is to make the decisions. It'd smack to them of mutiny or lack of professionalism.

In a career politician thinking like that would be the kind of cynicism that makes people cynical about politicians, but that's a different trade, with different expectations.