After Colin Powell died this week, almost every obituary highlighted not only his military leadership and service to multiple presidents, but also his speech before the United Nations. Yes, the speech alleging that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and laying out the rationale for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq just weeks later.

When subsequent events showed the intelligence Powell cited to be wrong, he acknowledged the episode was a “blot” on his record. Contrary to hagiographers such as intelligence community veteran Paul Pillar, however, the Bush administration neither duped Powell nor forced the secretary of state to give his U.N. speech. Rather, vanity got the best of Powell.