Colin Powell put on his dog and pony show at the UN today, providing evidence that Iraq is attempting to conceal its weapons work from inspectors. This all seems like a formality to me, given that we already know that Iraq is not going to disarm. The full text of the speech is up at the White House web site. Most interesting me is the renewed focus on the connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Rather than talking about the unsubstantiated links between al-Qaeda and Iraq before 9/11, Powell focused on Iraq as a current haven for al-Qaeda members. That was the magic ticket that got the world to support our invasion of Afghanistan, and it looks like we’re going back to the well.