Iraqi 'Curveball' Admits To 'Outright Lies' Costing U.S. Taxpayers $774 Billion - And Still Growing
The Iraqi defector codenamed "Curveball," whose claims about mobile biological weapons labs were repeated in Colin Powell's now infamous speech before the U.N, now admits that his claims were deliberate and outright lies. He literally just made it up. In an interview with the Guardian, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi (aka "Curveball") says that he made up the stories of WMD in the year 2000 because he wanted to see Saddam's regime taken down. It's long been known that the intelligence provided by Curveball was faulty, but now he also admits that British and German intelligence knew his claims were false by mid-2000 -- before the war in Iraq, before Colin Powell's speech, and even before the attacks of 9/11.
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Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war
By Martin Chulov and Helen Pidd
The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.
"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he said. "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.
The admission comes just after the eighth anniversary of Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations in which the then-US secretary of state relied heavily on lies that Janabi had told the German secret service, the BND. It also follows the release of former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's memoirs, in which he admitted Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction programme.
The careers of both men were seriously damaged by their use of Janabi's claims, which he now says could have been – and were – discredited well before Powell's landmark speech to the UN on 5 February 2003.
The former CIA chief in Europe Tyler Drumheller describes Janabi's admission as "fascinating", and said the emergence of the truth "makes me feel better". "I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that. Even now," said Drumheller.
In the only other at length interview Janabi has given he denied all knowledge of his supposed role in helping the US build a case for invading Saddam's Iraq.
In a series of meetings with the Guardian in Germany where he has been granted asylum, he said he had told a German official, who he identified as Dr Paul, about mobile bioweapons trucks throughout 2000. He said the BND had identified him as a Baghdad-trained chemical engineer and approached him shortly after 13 March of that year, looking for inside information about Saddam's Iraq.
"I had a problem with the Saddam regime," he said. "I wanted to get rid of him and now I had this chance."
He portrays the BND as gullible and so eager to tease details from him that they gave him a Perry's Chemical Engineering Handbook to help communicate. He still has the book in his small, rented flat in Karlsruhe, south-west Germany.
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Here's more...
- Thus far, the war in Iraq has cost over $740,000,000,000 -- but the cumulative cost could be between two and three trillion dollars. The war has caused the death of over 4,400 American troops, and left more than 31,000 wounded.
Video - Text from youtube - Americans consider the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan among the less important problems facing their country - according to a recent opinion poll. That's despite thousands of U.S. soldiers killed in action and more than one trillion dollars spent. But as RT's Lauren Lyster reports it may be the mainstream media that decides what really matters for the public...
Mar 11, 2011 at 10:30 PM
Reader Comments (14)
http://dailybail.com/home/draft-dodger-war-criminal-cheney-heckled-at-cpac-ron-paul-su.html
Comment: You can take this to the bank.
agreed....and as Dr. P. stated, the news here is that it was known (his lying) before the war began...so this makes your case even stronger...we're not trying to blame this guy and absolve US and Israel...he was a stooge...
We can print $ to cover the cost.
RON WHITE:" YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID"
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/02/16/breaking-news-ray-mcgovern-brutalized-left-bleeding-by-hillary-clinton-police-%e2%80%9cso-this-is-america%e2%80%9d/
[snip]
I just received the following news and I am way too upset to write a coherent piece on this. Ray McGovern is a good friend of mine. We live less than 10 miles apart. Together we have participated in many events and protests. He is one of the most informed, articulate, gentle, peace-loving and peace-seeking human beings I’ve ever known…For me, this hits too close to home: My father was similarly brutalized by dictator regimes....
Comment: Hillary has just pissed off an awful lot of people who have been gagged under states secret priviledge and others who hold or have held sensitive positions.......
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/peopleevents/pandeAMEX89.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1FTmuhynaw
Pretty badass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-Vy8fFnz18
Nurse Ratched just drones away like nothing's happening.
Flashback:
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00615FD35540C728EDDAE0894DB494D81
[snip]
Mr. Foster was a close associate of Mrs. Clinton, and had acted as her representative on many legal matters at the White House, including the search for a Supreme Court justice and arguments over her status as a de facto Federal official, which validated the secret hearings of her task force health care.
A spokesman for the United States Park Police said Tuesday night that Mr. Foster's body had been discovered in Fort Marcy Park near here shortly after 6 P.M. He was taken to Fairfax Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. 'True and Trusted Friend'
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/FOSTER_COVERUP/foster.php
[snip]
Robert Fiske was the first Independent Council appointed to investigate the Whitewater scandal. For a variety of reasons, including his past association with BCCI (a failed bank involved with the laundering of drug money), Fiske was considered by many unsuitable to investigate the various failed S&L in the Whitewater affair (many of which also appear to have been involved with the laundering of drug money) and Fiske was eventually replaced by Kenneth Starr.
The Preliminary Report On Vincent Foster by Robert Fiske.
Note that Fiske's report was only preliminary. His final report on Vincent Foster remains sealed. When the Wall Street Journal filed a Freedom Of Information Act request to force the release of Fiske's final report, the court, in an unprecedented prior restraint, ordered the Wall Street Journal not to report on the case, or to even mention what the final ruling actually was.
This illegal prior restraint is one of the indicators, which reveals how terrified the government is of the facts behind the death of Vincent Foster.