Iraqi Defector: I lied about WMD's to hasten Iraq War.

LONDON — An Iraqi defector who went by the codename “Curveball” has publicly admitted for the first time that he made up stories about mobile bioweapons trucks and secret factories to try to bring down Saddam Hussein’s regime.

"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he told the Guardian. "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."

I'm leaving this to debate. I personally believe there is much more to this situation.

Source

reply to post by ShadowKingpin


This is really concerning to me. Not the information presented, though, I already knew that years ago. But the fact that Americans now KNOW they were lied to and are okay with it.

reply to post by freedish


most american's are pushing the "fall-guy" argument, from what i've seen on various comment sections on news articles and on this site and others. i'd buy it, i guess, if enough evidence was brought forth.

reply to post by WilliamRikeronaSegway


Eh so what if he's the fall-guy, the facts remain the same. They told us they were going in b/c of WMD, and biological weapons and they found none. Zero. Nada. Either someone made a BIG oops (which I highly doubt) or they are lying to us.

I think this is logical enough that most americans could come to the same conclusion.

reply to post by freedish


right, but it's a matter of who they're mad at, him for lying or be the "fall guy", and in the case of the "fall guy" argument, who made him lie and/or take the fall for it. people who were against the iraq war(most americans) will be looking for someone to blame for it, so i doubt they'd be "okay" with it either way.

also, wasn't there a discussion on here about them finding phosgene gas and just keeping it hush hush? i rarely hear the "unjustified iraq war" argument with the "phosgene gas" argument together for obvious reasons, but the discussion's been there so i was wondering if there was anything to it. i don't believe it, personally, but considering it's been brought up i'd feel dirty not mentioning it.

It bothers me the most that this guy is going to be blamed for this, and not the morons who were told NOT to trust him by the DIA. I'm beyond speechless.

It could be that the U.S. government wants to better its image. To make the U.S. seem just dumb instead of evil to the international mainstream. Maybe they want a bump in ratings before they unleash some unpopular plan.

Originally posted by ShadowKingpin

LONDON — An Iraqi defector who went by the codename “Curveball” has publicly admitted for the first time that he made up stories about mobile bioweapons trucks and secret factories to try to bring down Saddam Hussein’s regime.

"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he told the Guardian. "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."

I'm leaving this to debate. I personally believe there is much more to this situation.

Source

To quote someone on the other thread on this topic, "I told you so!" That is, I suspected as much years back...
What do you mean by "much more to this situation?"
Vicky

Oh yeah we should automatically believe everything this guy says. OK.

Not just "curveball" but Ahmed Chalabi. The Bush administration and these Iraqi ...the best we can say of the lot of them is that they were useful idiots for each other.

Why don't we have a defense only military? We would save money and educate our people, improve our infrastructure, and become a stable nation again. The fact that people still to this day fight vilolently is troublesome. The manipulation and corruption is so dense it's often hard to see the light of day.

Ridiculous!!!!!! I wonder how this man and his sons sleep knowing his lie led directly the the deaths of 10's of thousands.

As much as I blame him, and I do, I also blame our government for believing him. The fact of the matter is that they did not verify his information, and they didn't want to. They simply were looking for someone to tell them what they already wanted to hear and he gave them exactly what they wanted.

Originally posted by WilliamRikeronaSegway
reply to post by freedish

 

right, but it's a matter of who they're mad at, him for lying or be the "fall guy"

Hmm good point.

I find it ironic that his codename was "Curveball"...........as in..that's what they're throwing you with this story.

Peace

The interesting point to take from this is that the american public at large aren't particularly upset, they don't care.

The conclusion to draw is that when in charge of the levers of power, if you want to take the US to war you can, for whatever reason you like. You can simply fabricate something to get the ball in motion and change the justifications on the fly.

Even when found out later on there are no repercussions. You can retire in wealth and write your memoirs. Another show will be on stage by then.

www.defense.gov...

From this source:

"June 29, 2006 – The 500 munitions discovered throughout Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a Intelligence Center report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction, the center's commander said here today. "These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction," Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee. The Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. It was signed in 1993 and entered into force in 1997. The munitions found contain sarin and mustard gases, Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said."

It only took approximately 20 munitions carrying the same chemical warfare payloads (sarin & mustard) to cause the deaths of more than 3,000 Kurds in March of 1988. Obviously 500 munitions are capable of causing a considerably higher body count. So the question is, how high does the body count need to be these days for something to be accepted by the masses as "WMD". Imagine the amount of damage 20 or more such rounds would do if set off in the center of a major US or European city (or smaller caches in multiple cities). I think the media would start referring to such munitions as WMD's from that point on, don't you? Of course at this point in time admitting that NBC/WMD weapons were found in Iraq wouldn't fit in with the political agenda of the media or majority of US politicians.

reply to post by ShadowKingpin


I could have, and did tell anyone who was interested (way back around 2004) that Curveball's info was known to be faulty by many nations. The US was told of it and knew Curveball had failed an exam with a lie detector.

When the Downing Street Memos were released in 2005 and the phrase, "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." was shared i thought for sure that the public would be up in arms over the manipulation which led to war. Most simply did not care. FIXING THE INTELLIGENCE AND FACTS to match the desired policy. Let that sink in not that we have spent trillions and have one of the highest military suicide rates ever.

Below is a larger quote from the 2002 document...

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record."

The first link here is a Washington Port report from 2006 which details a CIA officers claims that bush admin used the known to be faulty intel to sell the war.

www.washingtonpost.com...

downingstreetmemo.com...

www.juancole.com...

www.guardian.co.uk...

reply to post by veryinteresting




There is the $64000 question. Curveball's was the $3 Trillion Lie.

Of course, if Americans spoke out against the use of force pre-war, they were labeled unpatriotic or unAmerican, lovers of Saddam, soft on defense. The Bush administration cold cocked Americans, rendering many unconscious to anything but what was told them, as many are still to this today.

Originally posted by desert
reply to post by veryinteresting

 

There is the $64000 question. Curveball's was the $3 Trillion Lie.

Of course, if Americans spoke out against the use of force pre-war, they were labeled unpatriotic or unAmerican, lovers of Saddam, soft on defense. The Bush administration cold cocked Americans, rendering many unconscious to anything but what was told them, as many are still to this today.

And it is a simple thing to tie it all up by following that money. Who profited from the very expensive war, fought against a nation which had already been weakened by years of sanctions (and neither attacked or harbored an attacker against the US) and apparently has no end in sight?

War makes men very rich indeed.

And, of course, the playbook has a very long history...

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
--Nazi Hermann Goering


From the Project for a New American Century..."Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor"

www.newamericancentury.org...