It is hard to know what triggered Powell's WMD speech. The incident destroyed his reputation, and any future plans he may have had. I do not think Powell would have lied, knowing it would destroy his reputation, out of loyalty to the Bush administration.
There was nothing nefarious about the causes of the Three Mile Island disaster. It was caused by many factors, mainly engineering hubris, a mad rush to build many reactors quickly, and people cutting cost to the bone by not bringing in a few things such as a $50 modification to the valve or a $20,000 minicomputer to integrate the instrument data and produce things like an on-line steam table reading and red-line warning. They saved a few thousand dollars, and ended up spending ~$1 billion to clean up the mess, plus the loss of a brand-new $973 million plant. Naturally, all reactors have now been retrofitted with computers that show an integrated picture rather than a disparate set of numbers that have to be interpreted by the operators. That was one of recommendations of the Kemeny commission (p. 11): http://www.threemileisland.org/downloads/188.pdf Years later Kemeny said that reactors were much improved and the recommendations had been implemented. He died in 1992, so he never saw Fukushima. - Jed
