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Feb-15-2011 21:56
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A Curveball Hits Home: Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi's Dirty Secret, WMD and Iraq
Tim King Salem-News.comDefector admits to lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction that triggered the Iraq war.
 Possibly over a million civilians have been killed in the Iraq war, though groups are trying hard to convince Americans that "only" 100,000 or so were killed. These are the faces of Iraqi children in 2008. Salem-News.com photos of Iraq from the summer of 2008 by Tim King |
(SALEM, Ore.) - The Iraqi defector who caused the White House to believe that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme, has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story.
Reporters with the Guardian revealed how Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials, never expected the resulting war on Iraq... he watched in shock as his words were used to justify the war. He 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."
But as we have revealed before, the Iraq of today is a shattered, broken nation where hundreds of thousands; possibly up to 1.5 million people, have been killed by the US led military coalition.
The United States divided Shi'ite and Sunni neighborhoods and carried little regard for the fairly large population of Christians in Iraq. Everyone there had their lives turned upside down by a terrible, brutal war that drew allies from all over the world; people who would normally have been home raising families or going to school or working.
 US soldier at a 'Sons of Iraq' checkpoint. These were the |
We're talking about the endless lines of men who have gone to the Mideast to help rid the area of the deadly western presence. When I think of my time covering the two current wars I see massive destruction, sick people and mostly children, living their lives out among the difficulties brought about by a US occupation.
The worst part of it all is the American ego; this is a nation like many others, where people are taught to believe that everything they do is right, when it is truly seldom right, at least in recent US history. The result can be terrible treatment of Iraqi and Afghan people.
The Curveball admission arrives on the heels of the 8th anniversary of Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations the Guardian explains, 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.
Both saw their careers seriously damaged by their use of Janabi's claims; this was to be followed by the reputation of the United States which changed it role of national liberator into one of hostile invader. Such a reputation Americans have learned, is not easy to shake.
Now with the final admission once and for all that the US public was completely duped into believing the WMD story, it seems there is little revelation for the Bush Administration, which could not have possibly believed the weak, unverified story to be true.
It backs years of claims that Bush and Cheney were acting out a plan developed years before by the The Project for the New American Century; the think tank that decided it would take a Pear Harbor-like event to put America back on track. Then came the attacks on 11 September 2011. Surely this verification will only empower the growing suspicions that the US government was directly involved in the attacks, with the help of a few willing participants from US ally Saudi Arabia[1].
Perhaps one of the mot jagged parts of this is al-Janabi's statement that his claims could have been – and were – discredited well before Powell's landmark speech to the UN on 5 February 2003.
"Fascinating" is the word used by Tyler Drumheller- who served in the past as CIA chief in Europe. The former official said Janabi's admission and 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.
From the Guardian: [2]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.
"They were asking me about pumps for filtration, how to make detergent after the reaction," he said. "Any engineer who studied in this field can explain or answer any question they asked."
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.
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.
Almost ten bloody years later, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi says he is comfortable with what he did, now that the US is finally leaving Iraq. He references a civilian death toll of 100,000 that is so insulting to humanitarians that there are no words for it. The number is higher, and the US relies on the fact that it incinerated people's bodies and records at the same time during its attacks on the humanity of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.
Over three years ago, the World Health Organization indicated with a 95 percent degree of statistical certainty that between 104,000 and 223,000 civilians had died. One or two hundred thousand? Isn't that all anyone needs to know to appreciate that they are being provided more false information? I actually think the WHO information was accurate to the best of their findings, but what they truly reveal is that any estimate has a more than likely chance of being easily twice what any group claims[3].
A Website with the name 'Iraq Body Count' places the number at or just above 100k, yet it also appears to be pro war by it artwork and crude slogan[4].
They state: Iraq Body Count is an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world’s largest public database of violent civilian deaths during and since the 2003 invasion. The count encompasses non-combatants killed by military or paramilitary action and the breakdown in civil security following the invasion.
It is interesting that the group sports the low number with no regard for other established statistics. Wikipedia has a range of sources and numbers listed on their page Casualties of the Iraq War [5].
| Source | Iraqi casualties | Time period |
|---|---|---|
| Iraq Family Health Survey | 151,000 deaths | March 2003 to June 2006 |
| Lancet survey | 601,027 violent deaths out of 654,965 excess deaths | March 2003 to June 2006 |
| Opinion Research Business survey | 1,033,000 deaths as a result of the conflict | March 2003 to August 2007 |
| Associated Press | 110,600 deaths | March 2003 to April 2009 |
| Iraq Body Count project | 98,170 — 107,152 civilian deaths as a result of the conflict. 150,726 civilian and combatant deaths | March 2003 to October 2010 |
WikiLeaks. Classified Iraq war logs | 109,032 deaths | January 2004 to December 2009 | |
 |
In October 2006, the Washington Post Staff Writer David Brown wrote in his article Study Claims Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000, A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.
It's like we've entered a giant information snowstorm in 2011 with the US and its minions trying their darnedest to significantly reduce the numbers. And there is little reason to have faith in US determinations of 'combatant' and 'non-combatant' because there is zero accountability in the system.
I had the misfortune of boarding a helicopter one night at the Marine base in Fallujah that was transporting 'detainees' to three different points in Iraq. I witnessed horrible abuse of these Iraqi men that the US and its friends in the Iraqi Army deemed 'terrorists'. Absolutely anyone that the US believes needs to be deemed a combatant becomes one, as Wikileaks has shown us in recent months. The men who fight for the US military are conditioned to hate the people in the places they are deployed to. The loyalty is strictly to the US at all times and never to the Iraqi people.
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi said, "I tell you something when I hear anybody – not just in Iraq but in any war – [is] killed, I am very sad. But give me another solution. Can you give me another solution?"
"Believe me, there was no other way to bring about freedom to Iraq. There were no other possibilities."
For the civilians killed, mutilated, orphaned, permanently traumatized; and all of the American and British and coalition military killed and maimed; whose families were permanently ruined; traumatized beyond belief, all of them... it is not necessarily a good answer.
[1] The Project for the New American Century
[2] Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war - Guardian
[4] 'Iraq Body Count'
[5] Casualties of the Iraq War - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer
Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines.
Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Excellence in Journalism Award by the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs (2010), Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), First-place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Tim has several years of experience in network affiliate news TV stations, having worked as a reporter and photographer at NBC, ABC and FOX stations in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website. As News Editor, Tim among other things, is responsible for publishing the original content of 76 Salem-News.com writers. He reminds viewers that emails are easily missed and urges those trying to reach him, to please send a second email if the first goes unanswered. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com
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stephen February 16, 2011 4:26 pm (Pacific time)
Sky soldier: it is a proven fact that bin laden and alciada was birthed from the CIA. Is what you are saying that the CIA gave the money to saddam who then forwarded the money to bin laden? Your post makes no sense to me. If you read this, please explain. Saddam and Bin Laden have completely different ideologies, they hate each other. Please give links, or some type of confirmation, because your post, and what I have learned are completely different. Everyone knows the pentagon/kissinger put saddam in power as a globalist puppet. Yes, you are correct that he got too big for his britches, but this happens all the time to keep the military industrial complex rich and powerful. Kissinger visited saddam, the reason the U.S. attacked saddam is because he would not use the dollar, and the bankers who own DC and the military industrial complex, objected. The same thing is happening with Iran. I totally disagree with your observations, if you would send more info rather than say so, it would be appreciated. You can google all my allocations, I cant find any info in my searching that goes along with your views. thanks. And weapons of mass destruction? You might want to look into depleted uranium and the deformed babies in Iraq. Or the drones killing thousands of innocent civilians. Or, that most weapons dictators have, were sold to them by israel, britain and the U.S. Its obvious the military has brainwashed you..I suggest you check in with www.veteranstoday.com and Gordon Duff.
Sky Soldier/173rd Abn February 16, 2011 6:19 pm (Pacific time)
flush
February 16, 2011 12:46 pm (Pacific time)
The Bush adminstration was not conned about Iraq's lack of WMD, nor should Americans have been. The evidence of a Iraq War Hoax was there for all to see if they had looked. See my Sept. 24, 2010 article "Iraq War Hoax."
Sky Soldier/173rd Abn February 16, 2011 12:27 pm (Pacific time)
Mr. King I respect your opinion, as I do all others, but your opinion in this matter is based on limited and incorrect info. This in effect allows you to be manipulated. Here is something that has gone down the memory hole. During the invasion (thank God for the embedded reporters I was with) we ran across a chemical plant that was not on any map. The plant manager was an Iraqi general, it was secured by an Iraqi battalion. The plant was surrounded by barbed wire fence and guard towers. The reporters told us it was a plant manufacturing nerve agent.
Then, a couple of days later, the newsies came back and told us, no, come to find out, its not nerve agent. Its agricultural pesticide.
A few days later they captured an Iraqi Army ammo dump, and in the ammo dump were barrels of nerve agent. Then, the next day, they came back and said, no, again, our bad, its not nerve agent, its agricultural pesticide. This actually happened a couple more times, on one occasion the reporters got sick from exposure to the chemical. And in each case, after initially reporting that it was nerve agent, they came back later to correct themselves, agricultural pesiticide.
Agricultural pesiticide is nerve agent. If you spread it on Iranians or Kurds, its nerve agent. If you dilute it and spread it on your fields, its pesticide. But for me, if its manufactured by an army general and stored in ammo dumps, its correct to report it as nerve agent.
My question then and my question now, is who had the power to make WMD disappear by simply renaming it? And with Bush’s presidency hanging by a thread, how is it that this sleight of hand was allowed to stand? You could say, something similar happened with the whole Plame/Wilson affair, where Libbey was convicted for something Richard Armitage said, and both Armitage and Powell and the prosecutor agreed to remain silent until after the conviction. You could say something similar happened with the whole Niger uranium story, where everyone agreed Bush lied even though the Iraqi visits to Niger were public knowledge (and you’ll note no one ever has asked where Libya got its uranium).
Something similar happened when they posited the notion that there was no connection between Bin Ladin and Saddam, even though Bin Ladin was recruited by Egyptian Islamic Jihad, who formed his inner circle, and EIJ was on Saddam’s payroll. Another truth hiding in plain sight everyone has agreed not to notice. Some day in the distant future, there will be a massive release of information that will be quite shocking to those like you. As far as those 18 to 19 year olds you're referencing, it also appears you are unfamiliar with the age breakdown of our combatants. Maybe when you were in the miltary at that age you were easily manipulated, but your personal projection is completely wrong. Do some "primary sourced" research and enlighten yourself Mr. King, respectfully.
Tim King: Respectfully, If there had been WMD's those who wish to show a justification of the war would keep it in the headlines, do you know what I mean? There were apparently MiG-29's discovered in Balad, though I never conducted an official interview about it I did talk to a WO who said he was there. But that was not the biggest surprise, however these aircraft did have abilities that most I saw in the Balad aircraft junkyard lacked. I made the reference to the young soldiers simply because this is my experience going on combat patrols in Iraq and Afghanistan. I also knew a full bird colonel from Arkansas in Kabul who was close to 70, and we covered the death of the oldest soldier killed in Iraq. With IED's and convoys moving everywhere it is true that a range of ages accompany the names of the dead, but go out with the grunts and you will find fresh faces, young impressionable men. Let's not bicker, but agree to disagree, respectfully, thanks.
Anonymous February 16, 2011 10:18 am (Pacific time)
This info was put out by other websites such as infowars.com/alex jones, about two years ago. The reason it is brought out more mainstream now, is because websites such as infowars is now beating out mainstream, and mainstream has to come clean here and there, and then put a spin to it. This is why you see Glenn Beck telling more truth. His numbers were falling while Alex's numbers were growing. So, Glenn tells just enough truth, then spins it to not lose his audience. Glenn just copies Alex Jones. I received an email this morning, and it will show you (smoking gun), how the media is owned, controlled, and manipulated by the globalists. Democracy does not work, those with the most money will convince 51%, so those with the most money will make the rules. We need a Republic, and I dont mean the republican politicians, who are bought and paid for same as democrats. I am talking about a true Republic, that protects the poor and minorities. Here is the link...see for yourself how mainstream media lies, even a republican type news station, lieing about a republican. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwo0Iyrh1Zkandfeature=player_embedded p.s. I would like Tim King to explain why he supported obama. That would be interesting to read. I ask people why they supported mccain also..basically, its their false belief in the left/right hoax, or the tv told them to do it. They did NO research on their own.
Sky Soldier/173rd Abn February 16, 2011 9:15 am (Pacific time)
Editor, Tim King, are you familiar with the below presidential statement?
"Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade, and much of his nation’s wealth, not on providing for the Iraqi people, but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The United Nations weapons inspectors have done a truly remarkable job, finding and destroying more of Iraq’s arsenal than was destroyed during the entire gulf war. Now, Saddam Hussein wants to stop them from completing their mission. I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, “You cannot defy the will of the world”, and when I say to him, “You have used weapons of mass destruction before; we are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again." State of the Union Address, 1998, Bill Clinton// Note: Let's not forget Saddam's WMD use on his own people (Kurds), and his ongoing use of poison gas on Iranians. The attack on Kuwait, the burning of oil wells there and the resulting ecological disaster, violating the "no-fly zone, and other intelligence reports on the barbarism on his people, etc. , no doubt was not scoring any brownie points. When was the last time you were in Iraq? Had you been with the first to go in and there now to see the difference, including knowing how to seperate propaganda from real facts, you would have a far different interpretation. Otherwise you just continue to carry the water for radical muslims, and that's sad for you on a personal level, but it has no impact on reality. P.S. I know of no military personnel conditioned to hate. You cannot provide any professional witnesses on that matter. You will not post the above because your agenda is not the truth, and maybe you don't even know that?
Tim King: I watched a soldier with the 101st threaten a kid that he would "blow his head off" for laughing at him. I had a white soldier call Obama a N*gger and state that "no white soldiers in Indiana support him". We now know that the information about Kuwait that the war was based over was created in a NY ad agency ('throwing Kuwaiti babies') We know there was never a 'meat grinder' in Baghdad. I know the average person fighting in the war is awfully young; because the Army wants 18 and 19-year old kids; they are easier to program, less conscience. No, I wasn't in Iraq for the beginning of the war, when nobody was dying, human beings were working and going to school. Sorry man, I wish your justifications worked but they don't. I do know (of course) that there are plenty of good Americans not doing anything more than following orders. But my agenda IS the truth There were no WMD's and it's all nothing by a mistake. And it was the complete and total act of a warmonger president. To suggest that military personnel who hate people in the Mideast tosses the credibility of your point by the way, take care.
Anonymous February 16, 2011 12:39 am (Pacific time)
The evidence that the U.S and israel were complicit in the 911 attacks is so overwhelming, anyone to deny it, simply does not want to face it.
"Conned" February 15, 2011 11:03 pm (Pacific time)
http://dir.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/04/chalabi/ “How Ahmed Chalabi conned the neocons” May 2004 ( 5 pages ) “When the definitive history of the current Iraq war is finally written, wealthy exile Ahmed Chalabi will be among those judged most responsible for the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein.”… “The neoconservative strategy for Israel was laid out in a 1996 paper called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," issued by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies in Jerusalem (but written by Americans). The principal authors for the paper were Douglas Feith, then a lawyer with the Washington and Jerusalem firm of Feith and Zell, and Richard Perle, who until last year was the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory committee for Defense Secretary Rumsfeld” http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB326/doc08.pdf Copy of Rumsfield’s declassified notes on pretexts to go into Iraq (WMD) Source: THE IRAQ WAR -- PART I: The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001 U.S. Sets "Decapitation of Government" As Early Goal of Combat Talking Points for Rumsfeld-Franks Meeting in November 2001 Outline Policy Makers’ Aims for the Conflict and Postwar Rule of Iraq Declassified Documents Show Bush Administration Diverting Attention and Resources to Iraq Less than Two Months after Launch of Afghanistan War National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 326 Posted - September 22, 2010 George Washington University Archive http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/10/ahmed-chalabi-wmd-were-marginal-to-iraq-invasion/63919/ Interview with The Atlantic: “Ahmed Chalabi: WMD Were 'Marginal' to Iraq Invasion” (Oct 1 2010) “Former Iraqi leader Ahmed Chalabi, who served as President of the Governing Council of Iraq immediately after the U.S. invasion he helped organize, said at the Washington Ideas Forum that he still feels the 2003 invasion was worthwhile. "Getting rid of Saddam was certainly justified," he told Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn in their conversation at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. He said of his famously influential support for the war, "We were concerned about Saddam's oppression." He added when Quinn asked about the alleged weapons of mass destruction that never materialized, "The weapons of mass destruction was to our view a marginal issue."
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