60 Minutes: Interview With Iraqi 'Curve Ball'
60 Minutes Video - Iraqi Curve Ball speaks - Mar. 13, 2011
Transcript and web exclusive video are inside.
Bob Simon interviews the Iraqi defector code-named Curve Ball, whose false tale of a mobile, biological weapons program was the justification for invading Iraq.
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(CBS News) -- Next Saturday will mark the eighth anniversary of America's invasion of Iraq. And after all this time, questions still remain as to why the United States launched the war in the first place. The Bush administration said it was because of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
But there were no such weapons.
So how did U.S. intelligence get it so wrong? Incredibly, it was all because of one man - an Iraqi defector codenamed "Curve Ball" - who spun a web of lies which convinced America's top spies. His allegations became the crown jewel of the case Colin Powell made to the United Nations before the war.
Three years ago we told you part of this story. But we were missing one crucial element: Curve Ball himself.
We couldn't find him. Finally, we did and now we're going to introduce you to the man and ask you to ponder how anyone could ever have believed one word he said.
60 Minutes Extra - How Curveball created his story
Mar 13, 2011 at 10:42 PM
Reader Comments (2)
I don't know if this bit of copy is intentional BS or not, but it's BS just the same. US spies weren't tricked by Curveball. Colin Powell was fooled by his colleagues in the DOD and by the White House, but it's pretty clear no one who actually looked into things was fooled by Curveball himself.
From a Guardian article a few weeks back, recounting the point at which the German BND had confronted him with evidence he had been lying to them:
He said the BND did not contact him again until the end of May 2002. But he said it soon became clear that he was still being taken seriously.
He claimed the officials gave him an incentive to speak by implying that his then pregnant Moroccan-born wife may not be able to travel from Spain to join him in Germany if he did not co-operate with them. "He says, you work with us or your wife and child go to Morocco."
The meetings continued throughout 2002 and it became apparent to Janabi that a case for war was being constructed. He said he was not asked again about the bioweapons trucks until a month before Powell's speech.
After the speech, Janabi said he called his handler at the BND and accused the secret service of breaking an agreement that they would not share anything he had told them with another country. He said he was told not to speak and placed in confinement for around 90 days.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/defector-admits-wmd-lies-iraq-war
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-14/asian-stocks-slump-on-japan-earthquake-nuclear-concerns-nikkei-tumbles.html