Iraqi defector ‘Curveball’ admits to WMD lies that led to war



By David Edwards
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 -- 10:43 am

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Tags: Auto, behalf, blot, Bush, career, chance, country, defector, Draft, Feb, number
An Iraqi defector, codenamed Curveball, who allegedly helped convince the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had a secret stash of biological and chemical weapons, has admitted for the first time that he made it all up.
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi told The Guardian that he invented the stories to help topple Saddam Hussein, but was shocked when the US used tales as an excuse to go to war.

"I did that for a number of reasons," he said. "Firstly because of my people, the Iraqi people. The old regime was a dictatorship and that caused a lot of problems for our country."

"I had to do something for my country. So I did this and I am satisfied, because there is no dictator in Iraq any more."
"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," Janabi observed. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

It was just over eight years ago that US Secretary of State Colin Powell took Janabi's claims to the United Nations.
The news also follows the release of former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's admission that there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq before the war.


Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief in Europe, told The Guardian that Janabi's confession was "fascinating."
"I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that. Even now," he said.
Janabi's lies were key features of arguments made by the Bush administration, namely that Hussein was moving biochemical weapons from place to place with mobile labs. He falsely claimed that he worked on a team that assembled the weapons, and that Iraq had plans to build even more mobile weapons labs.

On Feb. 5, 2003, Powell repeated the claims in a speech to the United Nations, in which he justified the invasion of Iraq.
Powell later described his speech to the United Nations as a "blot" on his career.

"I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and [it] will always be a part of my record," he said. "It was painful. It's painful now."

This video is from The Guardian, broadcast Feb. 15, 2011.

Has anyone bought or read Rumsfeld's book yet?

Sixty Minutes did a good story on this a few years ago.

One of Curveball's big items was about two buildings that were so close that WMD's could be moved from one to another across a driveway. The CIA had the buildings photographed from the air and found this to be impossible. this was reported to Bush who ignored it.

When US troops fought their way into the area the buildings were in they found they were just warehouses and there was a large wall between them. This wall was in place when the CIA took photos, but it was not there when Curveball had last been in Bagdad. Since the wall was built after he left he had no way of knowing that his story would be so easy to disprove.

When Curveball was confronted with this info he began to change his story until now he says he is telling the truth.

One of the 'mobile chemical labs' was captured and pictures were sent out to prove to the world that they existed. Right wing Pitch-men made a big deal about this and praised Bush and Rummy until the photos were determined to be something very different.

They were in fact mobile weather stations that were necessary for launching SCUD rockets. The winds aloft and the humidity are critical to the guide systems of a SCUD, so a weather balloon is always launched to measure these items.

yawn....

Interesting that the history of a conflict resulting in over 4,000 US troop casualties since 2003 can be boring. Oh well, I guess the postscript is never as interesting as the sound of drums and the marching off to war.

The brilliant clear-sightedness of after-the-fact assessment.

Reminds me of the conspiracy theorists who believe that FDR was a willing participant in the Pearl Harbor attack. See, there were all of these indications that were perfectly obvious, after the fact. Any fool could see the obvious pattern. FDR was no fool. Therefore ....

Now let's imagine that FDR HAD seen the pattern and had ordered the American fleet to sink the Japanese forces in international waters and ordered the army to bomb and invade Japan. Would he have been justified in so doing? On such flimsy, equivocal evidence?

Armchair second-guessing. After-the-fact confessions from known liars. Get the popcorn and the foil hat. This is going to get good.

It would seem so – remarkably.

In court, lawyers love liars as witnesses, don't they?

and those 100,000 + dead iraquis are dullness personified.

the thousands of ptsd addled soldiers... humdrum.

__________________
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

uh, saddam was planning on bombing honolulu? ok, it all makes sense now.

__________________
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

Is that a display of intentional or natural stupidity?

Anyone that paid attention to Bush and the other liars in the build-up of the many reasons to invade Iraq would already of this guys existence and his reasons for lying.
Those that ignored such are now bored or are reduced to insulting the rest of us that knew Bush was lying from the start. The needless waste of blood and treasure on the hubris and fantasies of Dubya is now firmly the responsiblity of those that ignored the background murmur that the war was a lie.

absurdity.

such a silly argument, based on tired old methods, is certainly not worthy of being taken seriously.

and your subsequent move to the ad hominem is another of your tired, predictable maneuvers. are you going to call me a "weirdo", like last time?

back to the subject at hand.

the war that helped bankrupt america and destroy thousands of lives was commenced with a propaganda effort not seen since mr goebbels was in action. sorry that you and a bunch of suckers fell for it.

__________________
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

There's some saying about not learning from history . . .

Botnst, help me out here . .