Iraq and weapons of mass destruction Miller helped persuade the American public that Iraq had WMD: in September 2002 she wrote about an intercepted shipment of aluminum tubes which the NYT said were to be used to develop nuclear material. It is now generally understood that they were not intended (or well suited) for that purpose but rather for artillery rockets. The story was followed up with television appearances by Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice all pointing to the story as part of the basis for taking military action against Iraq. Miller's sources were introduced to her by Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi exile favorable
United Nations Security Council and the Iraq War who resigned in May 2003 over the war, stated in media interviews that British intelligence regularly spied on UN officials. She stated that she had read transcripts of Kofi Annan's conversations. In 2004 and 2005 Colin Powell acknowledged that much of his 2003 UN presentation was inaccurate: United Nations Security Council and the Iraq War In March 2003 the United States government announced that "diplomacy has failed" and that it would proceed with a "coalition of the willing" to rid Iraq under Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction the US insisted it possessed. The 2003 invasion of Iraq began