Defector admits that produce information to try to topple the regime of Saddam
LONDON - An Iraqi defector who went by the codename "Curveball", has admitted publicly for the first time he made up stories about trucks and mobile biological weapons factories secretly trying to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein.
"I had a problem with the Saddam regime," said Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, who fled Iraq in 1995, the Guardian newspaper. "I wanted to get rid of it and now I had this opportunity."
information from Al-Janabi was used in part by the U.S. as justification for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. More than 100,000 people, most of them Iraqi civilians have died in war. U.S. began withdrawing its troops from Iraq last summer.
Janabi said he was pleased with what he did, despite the war that ensued.
"Maybe I was right, maybe I was wrong," he told The Guardian. "They gave me this opportunity. I had the opportunity to make something to overthrow the regime. I and my kids are proud of it and proud of that were the reason to give Iraq democracy outside."
the Al-Janabi admission that he lied comes a little over a week after the eighth anniversary of the speech, then Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations in which he presented the case for war by presenting U.S. intelligence. UU. aimed at showing that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
At one point, Powell showed slides alleging that Saddam had bioweapons labs mounted on trucks that would be almost impossible to find.
"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources," Powell told the UN meeting. "These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
As it turned out, Powell was not told that one of the sources of information - "Curveball" - had been flagged by the Defense Intelligence Agency as a suspect and untrustworthy.
The Guardian said recently interviewed Al-Janabi in a series of meetings in Germany, where he was granted asylum. The Iraqi engineer said the BND, the German Secret Service, approached him in March 2000 looking for inside information on Saddam's Iraq.
He said he had told a German officer of the existence of mobile biological weapons trucks in 2000.
The BND traveled to a city of the Gulf, Dubai is believed to speak with his former boss at the Military Industrialization Commission in Iraq, Dr. Bassil Latif.
Latif flatly refused the demand of al-Janabi of mobile biological weapons truck and another claim that 12 people had died in an accident at a secret biological weapons facility in Baghdad, according to the Guardian.
The German authorities against Janabi with the denial of his boss, not him again until late May 2002, al-Janabi told The Guardian. Despite his earlier statements at issue, al-Janabi, said authorities and the U.S. Gerrman continued to take it seriously.
Said he was not asked again about biological weapons trucks up to one month before the Powell speech.
"I tell you something when you hear anyone - not just in Iraq but in every war - [is] killed, I'm very sad, but give me another solution can you give me another solution ..?" told The Guardian.
"Believe me, there was no other way to achieve freedom for Iraq. There were other possibilities."
Tyler Drumheller, former CIA chief in Europe, said Curveball's admission made him feel better about yourself.
Drumheller, who says he warned his superiors at the CIA before the invasion of 2003 that Curveball might be a liar, said the confession would be a final wake-up call for those who still insist on weapons of mass destruction had been.
"The interesting thing for me is that he has recanted what he said, which is fascinating in the sense that I still think there are a number of people still thought there was something in that. Even now," Drumheller told The Guardian.
LinkWithin
