Iraqi Defector Admits To Lying About Saddam’s WMD Program
It turns out the Iraq War was indeed based, in part at least, on a lie.
The Iraqi defector whose information was used by the United States to justify the invasion of Iraq has admitted that he fabricated the entire story:
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.
It turns out that Janabi had already been known to the Germans to be an unreliable source prior to the run-up to the Iraq War:
Janabi claimed he was first exposed as a liar as early as mid-2000, when the BND travelled to a Gulf city, believed to be Dubai, to speak with his former boss at the Military Industries Commission in Iraq, Dr Bassil Latif.
The Guardian has learned separately that British intelligence officials were at that meeting, investigating a claim made by Janabi that Latif’s son, who was studying in Britain, was procuring weapons for Saddam.
That claim was proven false, and Latif strongly denied Janabi’s claim of mobile bioweapons trucks and another allegation that 12 people had died during an accident at a secret bioweapons facility in south-east Baghdad.
The German officials returned to confront him with Latif’s version. “He says, ‘There are no trucks,’ and I say, ‘OK, when [Latif says] there no trucks then [there are none],'” Janabi recalled.
The Germans returned to Janabi in May 2002, just when the propaganda run-up to the Iraq War was beginning. It doesn’t take too much to figure out that this likely occurred at the behest of the United States, which was eager for as much information proving that Saddam Hussein was pursuing a WMD program in violation of UN sanctions as it could find. Despite the fact that he had been previously established as a liar, he was apparently taken seriously and given incentives for sharing as much information as he could come up with. Which he obviously did.
At the same time, there’s no evidence that the United States knew about the problems with Janabi’s credibility, or even that they knew who he was other than “Curveball,” the code name assigned to him by German intelligence. So, absent additional information, this doesn’t strike me as implicating the Bush Administration in Janabi’s lies. What it does demonstrate, though, is the extent to which, during the period from late 2001 through early 2003, the United States was singularly focused on finding any evidence it could to justify war against Iraq to the exclusion of anything to the contrary. Obviously, the Germans, as our allies, picked up on this and provided us with the information we needed. The problem is that nobody in Berlin or Washington seems to have bothered to make any effort to independently verify what Janabi was saying before deciding to use it as the basis to go to war. And that’s a problem.
So far at least, this story seems to be be drawing very little attention in the blogsphere, and none at all among conservative bloggers. That’s too bad, because the fact that we fought a war based not only on bad intelligence, but on intelligence that was based on evidence provided by someone who was already a known liar strikes me as something that we ought to be concerned about.
News flash: Sky is blue.
So what would a prudent decision have been based upon the information given? The decision that was made.
Saddam had previously manufactured WMD’s, he had previously used them, he had thrown out UN inspectors, and a defector reported they still existed. Anything other than what we did would have been malfeasance.
What choice of name this time Mantis my friend?
So, how do we know that he’s telling the truth now?
The fact that there was never any physical evidence found to corroborate his original story is strong evidence he’s telling the truth now
So the government should rely on someone who was most likely a liar instead of the actual inspectors on the ground?
The UN inspectors were in the country from 2002 until just before the war.
Am I wrong for wanting the trial of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney on war crimes, and their execution should they be found guilty? Am I a nutjob for that?
“… and none at all among conservative bloggers.”
Ace wrote about this hours before this post went up.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/312101.php
Steve,
Tomorrow, Obama is going to issue an Executive Order forcing every citizen to trade their US dollars for Chinese Yuan.
Given that information, go make a “prudent decision”.
“At the same time, there’s no evidence that the United States knew about the problems with Janabi’s credibility, or even that they knew who he was other than “Curveball,”
Doug is amazed Curveball was full of shit . Er Doug, the British security services were telling their own prime minister and the US govt that this info was very iffy. My memory is hazy but I also believe the German intelligence agencies were raising red flags and of course there were numerous people in the US intelligence community and on the hill who were concerned about this guy and his front man’s credibility. Car salesmen must love you Doug.
I’m at The Day Job, but I’m planning on writing about it. And it should come as no great surprise that I’m going to agree with Mr. Plunk.
J.
What choice of name this time Mantis my friend?
You’re still a moron. You proved it with your comment that invasion and occupation of Iraq was the prudent decision. You really need to look up that word.
And it should come as no great surprise that I’m going to agree with Mr. Plunk.
Of course not. Anything different from you people would force you to admit how gullible you are.
There is ample testimony to the fact that Bush and Cheney were only interested in information that supported their desire to invade. They betrayed their country because they believed the neocon fantasy about Iraq being the first domino to topple all of the other dictators in the area, and all the citizens marching in the streets praising Bush. For just how deeply they were into their alternate universe you need look no further than their ‘reconstruction efforts’, where they sent in new graduates with no experience in the workplace much less experience in an occupied, violent country. They sent these true believers from Liberty University rather than people who understood what the situation was going to be.
Not at all suprising, since all that Bush retained from his ‘education’ at Yale and Harvard was the then popular McKinsey CEO wanker-stroking about how the best corporate leaders didn’t have to actually know anything but had to be willing to decide, and the best leaders were the best deciders. So he let a bunch of neocons sell him on their flawed world view, and gave them access to a trillion dollars, 4000 american lives and innumerable Iraqi ones.
Face it, you can try to rehabilitate them all you want, but they were totally, totally, goat-f**king wrong.
“So, absent additional information, this doesn’t strike me as implicating the Bush Administration in Janabi’s lies.”
Bush made zero effort to verify Curveball’s stories or any of the other phony stories.
And thousands of Americans paid the price for his…incurious nature..
Mantis, Thank you my friend for such kind words. I did look up a few words and found them very appropriate for your behavior. I also looked up words like ‘civil’, ‘reasonable’, and even ‘debate’. You should take a look.
There will always be this controversy but until some real evidence convinces me otherwise I will side against the mass murdering Saddam Hussein who attacked Kuwait, gassed the Kurds, and sent Iraqis to their deaths in order to avoid real weapons inspections.
This is one of the greatest debacles in US history. The direct cost in lives and treasure has been enormous and the collateral damage is so big and continuing it’s going to be years before it can be assessed with any accuracy. And Doug’s response is there’s no evidence the US knew about the cred problems of Curveball or his front man Chalabi. The question of the accuracy of this info was daily news fodder for months in the run up to the invasion.
“There will always be this controversy but until some real evidence convinces me otherwise I will side against the mass murdering Saddam Hussein who attacked Kuwait, gassed the Kurds, and sent Iraqis to their deaths in order to avoid real weapons inspections.”
It’s a pity you have no sense of perspective whatsoever. The crimes committed by Hussein are irrelevant to the US which was never under any serious threat from him. Invading Iraq because he was bad guy hardly justifies the human and material cost to the US. The world is full of bad guys whose countries we’ve chosen not to invade.
There will always be this controversy but until some real evidence convinces me otherwise I will side against the mass murdering Saddam Hussein who attacked Kuwait, gassed the Kurds, and sent Iraqis to their deaths in order to avoid real weapons inspections.
You can pretend that this is a debate between an anti-Hussein side and a pro-Hussein side, but it’s not.
“the fact that we fought a war based not only on bad intelligence, but on intelligence that was based on evidence provided by someone who was already a known liar strikes me as something that we ought to be concerned about.”
Only if you didn’t want it to happen again, hence why neither the government nor the right wing blogosphere cares. As for the left, well those of us paying attention knew a long time ago that curveball was full of crap, that the germans knew it and that the only reason the US didn’t know it is because our leaders studiously tried to ignore it, not because it wasn’t obvious.
At the same time, there’s no evidence that the United States knew about the problems with Janabi’s credibility, or even that they knew who he was other than “Curveball..
Really? I wonder how he came to be known as “Curveball”?
It was never ever based on simply the testimony of just this guy. Where are you getting your info from?
To me it’s clear that patriots would do well to move to Iraq right now and help to establish a long term presence there to make the war worth the trouble. 🙂
@Plunk
” I will side against the mass murdering Saddam Hussein who attacked Kuwait, gassed the Kurds, and sent Iraqis to their deaths in order to avoid real weapons inspections”
So will I. But the fundamental question was always: Did Saddam pose a threat to us? I think not. Even if we grant, what is now known to have been untrue, that he possessed WMD, did those WMD threaten us? I’ve never seen a compelling argument that, if he possessed such weapons, they constituted a threat to us. There was a lot of what ifs, and so on. Not much else.
“There will always be this controversy but until some real evidence convinces me otherwise I will side against the mass murdering Saddam Hussein who attacked Kuwait, gassed the Kurds, and sent Iraqis to their deaths in order to avoid real weapons inspections.”
Steve, you should watch a documentary called “Uncle Saddam.” I watched it shortly before the war pigs started oinking about Iraq and I knew —knew-– there would be no WMD.
The fact that years after we invaded…. that we now know what was and what wasn’t…. that good intelligence is easily seperated from bad intelligence…. that people who were explicitely elected to do exactly that… that others who were NOT so charged were saying…
‘Uhhhhhhhh… wait a minute, things don’t add up…”
That the Steve Plunks of the world STILLL defend the bad decisions of the Bush II administration (and they were BAD Steve, tell me they were correct or admit they were wrong)
This fact points out what is so wrong with our political discourse just now.
Isn’t this story years old? Didn’t we know then that Germans didn’t trust our source.
Ann never forget the Downing Street Memos. Intelligence to be fixed to match policy.
The Bush admin “found a guy” to say what they wanted. Clear as day.
“There will always be this controversy but until some real evidence convinces me otherwise I will side against the mass murdering Saddam Hussein who attacked Kuwait, gassed the Kurds, and sent Iraqis to their deaths in order to avoid real weapons inspections.”
If that is the rationale for invading and occupying Iraq, when do we do the same to Iran, North Korea, Burma, and Sudan, among many other places?
“Mantis, Thank you my friend for such kind words. I did look up a few words and found them very appropriate for your behavior. I also looked up words like ‘civil’, ‘reasonable’, and even ‘debate’. You should take a look.”
You really should follow your own advice and look up “dupe”, “blind partisan”, “chump”, and “hack” among other terms that, while possibly might not match your idea of civility, at least are accurate in describing people who still believe in the Iraq debacle even after knowing this latest piece of information…
This and the link to 9/11 have been nonsense for a long time, every rational person admits that. The only things left that Bush and company put forward was that Saddam is a bad guy. That was absolutely true.
And afterwards, something about Iraq being a beacon of democracy. This is the interesting part. Can the protests in Egypt be attributed to Iraq’s democracy? It doesn’t seem likely to me because the dust hasn’t settled there, but perhaps someone could argue this point and I would be interested to hear it.
The only new thing here is Curveball’s confession. If you are surprised, you haven’t been paying attention. See this:
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/apr/01/nation/na-curveball1
for example. If you are reluctant to rely on a LA Times article, you can read the section about Curveball in the (unclassified) report from the Bush-appointed commission that investigated our pre-war intelligence gathering:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/wmd/pdf/chapter1_fm.pdf
Some quotes from that document:
“The DIA’s Defense HUMINT Service’s failure even to attempt to validate Curveball’s
reporting was a major failure in operational tradecraft.”
and
“Indications of possible problems with Curveball began to emerge well before
the 2002 NIE. These early indications of problems—which suggested unstable
behavior more than a lack of credibility—were discounted by the analysts
working the Iraq WMD account. But given these warning signs, analysts
should have viewed Curveball’s information with greater skepticism and
should have conveyed this skepticism in the NIE. The analysts’ resistance to
any information that could undermine Curveball’s reliability suggests that the
analysts were unduly wedded to a source that supported their assumptions
about Iraq’s BW programs.”
I have friends who were telling me very early in the Bush admins run-up to the war that the PNAC crew had been hot for war with Iraq back in the 80s, that they had gained great influence in the Bush White House and DOD , and that the WMD story was complete crap.
At the time, I was skeptical that the Bush administraion could possibly be so stupid as to go to war under false pretenses, especially given the outstanding job his father had done with Gulf 1. But here we are…
These democrats seemed to think Saddam/WMD were a threat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhZ2ZvS2t_E
and lets picture the world today with Saddam still in power, trying to acquire nukes along side Iran- and with his 2 insane and murderous sons waiting in the wings.
and lets picture the world today with Saddam still in power, trying to acquire nukes along side Iran- and with his 2 insane and murderous sons waiting in the wings..
We were told he HAD wmd, not he was “trying to acquire them”. “We know they have them and we know where they are”. Thousands of dead Americans and a trillion dollars gone over a lie. And you don’t seem to mind at all.
not exactly news. i blogged it in 2004. http://www.herbely.com/2004/07/cia_officials_c.html
50,000 Kurds would tell you that chemical weapons are wmd, if they were alive to speak…yet you don”t seem to mind at all that they are not.
As the youtube clip, among other things. indicate most Western governments thought Saddam had WMD and was intent on acquiring more- and didn’t want to wait around and find out. The war was overwhelmingly approved by vote by both parties.
Also by your logic all of those heroic soldiers served should hate Bush, yet they seem to favor him greatly.
Chemicals weapons are indeed WMD, and Saddam had them because we sold them to him. Which is sad, as is everything that has followed, and much of what went before – and we had a large role in much of it. This isn’t just about Bush, its about what we’ve done for decades.
“This isn’t just about Bush, its about what we’ve done for decades.”
I think it has to do with what Saddam had done for decades in region vital to the world’s interests. But to blame a murderous Stalinist thug is just too unimaginable for some in these parts.
Is this a case of cycling in a news story to override the fact that there is prior overwhelming evidence that the Bush admin knew and lied about WMD’s? Its not even contraversal anymore, the evidence is out there already, so who cares what curveball says ?
MarkedMan said: “There is ample testimony to the fact that Bush and Cheney were only interested in information that supported their desire to invade.”
I agree. I don’t think the Bush crew lied knowingly. Frankly, if they knew there weren’t WMDs in Iraq, they would surely have had a plan instead of getting caught with their pants down when no weapons turned up. (though, granted, it’s not like they planned for anything *else* post-invasion…)
However, I do believe they were incredibly negligent in seeking out all evidence that confirmed their preconceived notions — even highly suspect evidence — while utterly disregarding evidence that contradicted their wishes. Any competent evaluation of the facts would have turned out different conclusions. The Bush crew did not want different conclusions, so they did not competently evaluate the facts. And I believe they knew or should have known that they were being negligent in their duties.
I have a hard time believing that the Bush defenders here would defend a Democratic president if he used dubious information that turned out to be false in order to launch a failed war.
> I think it has to do with what Saddam had done for decades in region vital to the world’s interests
That makes you a fool. We supported him during some of that time. We were told that Saddam had WMD that were an immediate threat to our national security. It was a lie. Gulf 2 had nothing to do with Saddam slaughtering Kurds. If you think it does, your are doubly a fool.
Your pretty incoherent anjin-san, but for entertainment’s sake make sure you call the next person you respond to a triple and then quadruple fool and then throw in a “have you no decency sir!” for good measure.
You know, really sell it.
And you don”t care one bit who dies (like the Kurds) if it gets in the way of your hand wringing, blame the U.S first mindset. You are a less than useful idiot.
Anon,
You might want to try that cheese in an AOL chat room, won’t play here.
If you are so concerned about the Kurds, perhaps you can tell us what you, personally, have done to help them. Running your mouth on a blog does not count…
Anon,
Hussein murdered those Kurds while he was a U.S. ally, while Rumsfeld was shaking his hand and while the Reagan Administration was providing him military aid…
Alex,
Don’t confuse the kid with facts…
Chemicals weapons are indeed WMD, and Saddam had them because we sold them to him. Which is sad, as is everything that has followed, and much of what went before – and we had a large role in much of it. This isn’t just about Bush, its about what we’ve done for decades.
Horseshit. Complete and utter horseshit.
The “chemical weapons” we “sold him?” In the 1980s, the American Type Culture Collection shipped anthrax samples to Iraq. Their whole purpose is to collect and distribute samples of various diseases, and they have been a great boon to medical research and treatment around the world. The samples were very difficult — if not impossible — to weaponize.
Also, pesticides. Dow sold Iraq pesticides that worked very well as pesticides, but could also — with a great deal of effort — be made into chemical weapons.
Listen to just George and his ilk, and you might end up thinking we set up Saddam with weaponized anthrax, nerve gas, and delivery systems, accompanied by a note saying “best wishes with the genocide! Love and kisses, Uncle Sam.”
J.
Read Samantha Power on the Kurds. She devotes a chapter to them. Saddam used his chemical weapons against them in the 80s and, maybe, early 90s. Why invade Iraq 10-20 years later for those attacks? It is also pretty well documented that we supported Saddam financially in his war against Iran.
This story about Curveball is old. I am surprised to see it in the news again. There was plenty of evidence that Saddam did not have WMD, it just was not given equal weight with evidence like that from Curveball. Our own inspectors were given less credibility than this guy and others like Chalabi. Those who write on intelligence have noted that in order to retain a career in the field, you need to anticipate what the administration wants to hear, then find evidence to support
The Bush administration failed by not considering evidence that contradicted what they already believed. They did not make an objective attempt to discover what was really going on in Iraq. They also followed the 1% rule, taking the most extreme case to justify decisions.
Steve
I think it goes deeper than spin, Hello. It’s luke the American people cannot quite deal with the degree to which the democracy was subverted, so they look away.
This recycled story fits a more comfortable narrative.
History won’t be so kind.
To the people saying this is an old story, do you have links that show where Curveball *admitted* that he was lying? Sure, we knew he was lying before, but I believe his admission of guilt (and laying out the reasons he did what he did) is news.
You’re never going to convince the dead enders that invading Iraq was anything other than a brilliant (rather than a suicidal) piece of statecraft. They are part of the 25% of the country that for reasons of stupidity or tribalism has not accepted that the Iraq war was a major debacle launched on highly suspect intelligence that the administration lied about. For the other 75% of the country, some of them reluctantly, the light bulb has come on and as a steady trickle of information (of which this is just the latest instalment) becomes available it’s just going to reinforce the majority view. But it won’t convince the dead enders because their opinion is not based on evidence but on a rejection of anything that raise questions about heir worldview. It’s not very different from trying to convince a dedicated member of Al Quaeda that their their philosophy may be suspect. Then there are those like Doug who recognize the evidence is pretty conclusive but have to blur the issue because they realize it’s extremely damaging to the conservative right (although oddly enough their guru Paul was opposed to the war to his credit). It’s all so transparent it’s hard to get excited about it nor should liberals generally. The truth is on their side over this and there is such a wall of it out there which is building all the time that I’m quite comfortable with what the verdict of history will be. Of course this won’t bring the hundreds of thousands of people who have died back to life but there it is. Ironically, if Bush’s religious beliefs we’re anything other than superstition, he’d be paying the price in the afterlife. Unfortunately, perhaps, they aren’t.
Here’s some of Jay Tea’s brilliance, from his swamp:
He’s right. He does live in an alternate universe. An imaginary one.
mantis, you dishonest asswipe, if you’re going to lift my words, as least have the integrity to include a link, or quote the punchline:
http://wizbangblog.com/content/2011/02/16/no-wmd-bfd.php
Dammit, screwed up the block quote. Only the “goatee” line should have been quoted. My apologies.
J.
The implication being that MY “mirror universe” is the real one, and the one you and the rest of your ilk are in is the fantasy.
Yeah, I got your implication. It’s absurd.
you’re far too intelligent to do that by accident.
It wasn’t an accident. You do live in an imaginary universe.
The people left defending the bag of ___ that is occupation of Iraq should remember the neocon vision that got them there … a post cold war vision .. a new world order … remade as we liked it!
You poor guys, the neocons have moved on leaving you (and of course us) holding that bag.
So absurd, that you had to misrepresent it and not even mention that I meant it facetiously? I think not. That, combined with no link to the actual article, was a deliberate attempt to misrepresent what I said sarcastically as sincere, to strip away the conceit of “this is my delusion” actually meaning “this is reality; they are the deluded ones.” If you wanted to reject it, you would have done so explicitly. Instead, you Dowdified (that’s slang for “selectively quote to invert or otherwise pervert the original intent,” named after its most prominent practitioner, Maureen Dowd) it to suit your purposes.
And I caught you at it.
Own it, will you?
J.
So absurd, that you had to misrepresent it and not even mention that I meant it facetiously?
You meant what facetiously? That you live in an alternate universe? That much was quite clear in what I excerpted. My point, which was equally clear, is that your “facetious” alternate universe really is an alternate universe, where you believe things which just ain’t so in reality. You really do live in the goateed Spock universe, though it’s all just made up in your head.
That, combined with no link to the actual article, was a deliberate attempt to misrepresent what I said sarcastically as sincere, to strip away the conceit of “this is my delusion” actually meaning “this is reality; they are the deluded ones.”
Are you serious? Your sarcasm is quite clear in what I excerpted. And I won’t link to your swamp. I’m not a blogger, and I don’t feel the need to extend you any blogger link courtesy. Maybe if you folks were a little less psychotic over there, I wouldn’t feel bad about directing traffic your way.
If you wanted to reject it, you would have done so explicitly.
I did do so explicitly. You’re just too dumb to recognize it.
Instead, you Dowdified (that’s slang for “selectively quote to invert or otherwise pervert the original intent,” named after its most prominent practitioner, Maureen Dowd) it to suit your purposes.
And I caught you at it.
Well, you think you did, anyway.
> mantis, you dishonest asswipe
Jay you are pretty much a proven liar around here. Your credibility for calling anyone dishonest is just about zero. You might want to think about cleaning up your own act first, then pointing fingers.
mantis, I don’t recall you being authorized to speak for this blog. And please, explain how quoting the first part of a piece I wrote and not mentioning that by the end of the piece I had not only retracted the part you quoted, but completely inverted it.
Normally, I’d get snide and say that perhaps you’re unfamiliar with such rhetorical techniqes and stylistic choices, but — as I’ve said — I have too much respect for your intelligence. So that only leaves your integrity.
Then again, I seriously misread you back when you commented on Wizbang. Perhaps I overestimated your perception. Maybe you are not a fraud, but simply a moron.
Yes, I said exactly what you quoted — in what was clearly a sarcastic and insincere tone. To pretend that I meant only the part you quoted is grotesque fraud.
Then again, I could be mistaken. There’s a third possibility besides “you’re an idiot” and “you’re a liar” here. They both could be true, and you could be auditioning for a job with Media Matters…
J.
mantis, I don’t recall you being authorized to speak for this blog.
I didn’t.
And please, explain how quoting the first part of a piece I wrote and not mentioning that by the end of the piece I had not only retracted the part you quoted, but completely inverted it.
Only the part about it being an alternate universe, which you clearly meant sarcastically. You’re just pissed because I didn’t include your Star Trek reference, which you apparently think was clever, but I found irrelevant.
Then again, I seriously misread you back when you commented on Wizbang.
Likewise. I thought you weren’t a psychotic.
Yes, I said exactly what you quoted — in what was clearly a sarcastic and insincere tone. To pretend that I meant only the part you quoted is grotesque fraud.
You were sarcastic about it being an alternate universe. You believe those things, and think they are the reality. They are not. That was my point. It is an alternative universe you live in, despite your sarcasm.
Now seriously, give it up. You just keep looking dumber with every comment.
> Now seriously, give it up. You just keep looking dumber with every comment.
No matter how high the stupid bar is set, jay clears it like an olympic champ…