'Curveball': I Lied About Iraq WMD To Help Topple Saddam

[wildbilln864]

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed "Curveball" by German and American intelligence officials, now admits he made up tales of mobile biological weapons trucks and clandestine weapons factories in Iraq, information that was used by the Bush White House to press the case for war. He also says he'd do it again.

"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," Janabi 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."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/curveball-i-lied-about-iraq-wmd-to-help-topple-saddam

[RiverLover]

1. Wow

Wow!

Corrupt, evil, and delusional - ".. we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

Thanks for posting.

[Warpy]

34. Most of us here knew it was a pack of lies

because we were paying attention to Hans Blix, the UN inspector who was actually on the ground in Iraq.

We just found it hard to believe that Congress was falling for their bullshit. When powerless people know more than their leaders do, the country is in serious trouble.

I'd love to see the lot of them tried for mass murder, at the very least, starting with this moron.

[gratuitous]

2. Illegal war based on trumped-up "evidence"

But let's not talk about that, when we're thinking about leaving troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and contemplating those ever-popular boots on the ground in Iran and Syria. We'll get it right this time. Really. Trust us.

[hollowdweller]

3. Netanyahu I lied about Iran to topple them

Will that be the line 10 years from now?

[Autumn]

4. I hope they are proud of all the deaths that they helped cause.

[think]

5. He's probably lying now as well /nt

[djean111]

6. I sincerely doubt that the people they were lying to did not encourage them to lie.

Seems a bit conveeeenient, when Jeb needs to somehow rehabilitate his brother.
Gosh, I suppose, now, that everyone who helped engineer the war can now proclaim that they were misled, right? Wrong, IMO and all that. All that bloodshed, based on lies from one source. Yeah, right.

[BrotherIvan]

15. +1

[liberal N proud]

7. The liars are starting to be exposed - how far will it go?

Will the exposures go to the top? Will anyone ever be prosecuted?

[wildbilln864]

10. doubtful because we're "looking forward" now. n/t

[cui bono]

12. Yup.

Disgusting.

[NuclearDem]

8. Filed under "no shit Sherlock."

[Wellstone ruled]

9. Nixon proved you can plant stories and

tell white lies and at the end of the day,you win. It is called Propaganda!!!!

[cui bono]

13. And friends in high places. n/t

[Takket]

11. Why is this not the #1 story in every media outlet???

[madfloridian]

14. Bob Simon's interview with Curveball in 2011. Video.

This was pretty much ignored when it was posted. They gave this man so much credibility.

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/10026221859

[wildbilln864]

21. thank you! n/t

[randys1]

28. I have been screaming about this since then

[Gothmog]

16. The german intelligence agencies knew that Curveball was lying and warned the CIA

The bushies ignored the warnings from the German intelligence. This is one reason why Sec. of State Powell's speech to the UN had no effect. The german and french intelligence agencies knew that Powell was using bad intelligence

[Dems to Win]

17. No shit. His stories were obvious lies at the time.

Not for an instant did it make a lick of sense that Iraq, which was being bombed weekly/monthly to enforce no fly zones and was under crushing sanctions that killed an estimated half million children, had a functioning program developing weapons of mass destruction. Every single Curveball story from Judith Miller and the NYT was a laughable, ridiculous joke to anyone who'd been reading the news for the past decade. Anyone listening to Amy Goodman knew the yellow cake/Niger story was a pack of lies from day one.

[leveymg]

31. Even the CIA branded him as a fraud years earlier.

But, if you're not from the reality-based community, that doesn't matter.

[Mike Nelson]

18. We always knew he was a liar...

...the US media doesn't seem to care about this story at all.

[phantom power]

19. recommend

[arcane1]

20. Now he just needs to admit who was paying him to lie. n/t

[grasswire]

22. yes

that's the money spot.

[JonLP24]

23. Proud?

The 5th most corrupt government took its place.

I can't find the best corruption source right now but they have a lot of corruption in the private business sector in addition to government corruption.

[Octafish]

26. Based on dollar value alone, these are the most corrupt times in human history.

David Stockman estimated 7/8 of all wealth has been created since 1981.

Now, thanks to Stockman and Reaganomics Trickle Down Neoglobalcolonialism, most of that has accrued in a very few pockets.

Trust Them. They can afford to be generous with the politicians they own.

[JonLP24]

33. I recently came across a study from the UCLA Law Review

and you're just the kind of person I'd love to share with in this context.

B. Military Privatization in the Persian Gulf


Military privatization, however, is not simply an abstract process that unfolds
in the same way across space and time. Crucial to understanding the rise of
TCN labor in particular was the post-Cold War military’s shift to a new center of
gravity: the Persian Gulf. The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait marked a major
shift in the global U.S. military posture, with the deployment of large ground
forces to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as a counterbalance to both Iraq and Iran.
Since then, U.S. bases in the Gulf have been key staging areas for operations in
Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Unlike the major overseas hubs of the Cold
War military in Western Europe and East Asia, the Gulf economies were built in
large part on foreign migrant labor. Large numbers of noncitizens reside in Qatar
(86.5 percent of the population), the U.A.E. (70 percent), Kuwait (68.8 percent),
Bahrain (39.1 percent), and Saudi Arabia (27.8 percent).40 Indeed, the military
and police services of the Arab Gulf states themselves also make extensive use of
foreign labor, at both the rank-and-file and officer levels. The U.A.E. and Qatari
militaries employ large numbers of contractors from Pakistan, Egypt, and other

countries.41 Bahrain’s extensive reliance on Pakistanis and other foreigners has
attracted considerable attention since the 2011 uprising.42
The Gulf states’ migrant-driven economy converged with the changes in
U.S. military logistics: Companies specializing in recruiting migrant labor for
construction, logistics, and security in the petroleum and related industries were
well-poised to lend their services to the U.S. military. Over preceding decades,
Gulf regimes crushed budding labor movements that emerged around the oil industry43
and replaced them with large numbers of migrants, all while extending
state largesse to pacify and co-opt the citizenry. In contrast, contractors at the
major U.S. airbase at İncirlik, Turkey, were forced into arbitration with local unions
after major strikes in the late 1980s and early 1990s. One U.S. military contractor
complained of the Turkish workers having a “home-field advantage”;44 in
countries such as Kuwait, such concerns did not exist. As a result, large U.S. military
contractors such as KBR, DynCorp, and Fluor can draw from a variety of
smaller multinational companies to recruit and transfer workers through the
Gulf. One Dubai-based company operating on bases in Afghanistan, Ecolog,
was founded by an ethnic Albanian entrepreneur providing services to NATO
peacekeepers in Kosovo.45 One of the leading recruiters of Ugandan security
guards for the U.S. military, Dreshak Group, is also based in Dubai but was
founded in Pakistan.46

C. Exploitation & Abuse

Human rights activists and journalists have done considerable work in exposing
the abuses faced by TCNs from poor countries, whose situation hasbeen likened to indentured servitude or slavery.47 While service members and
TCNs may work side by side on U.S. bases, a complex web of entities often
shields the U.S. government from responsibility for TCN workers. Prime contractors
hire subcontractors (often foreign companies) to fulfill specific task orders.
Subcontractors in turn use recruiting agencies to find and bring workers
from other locations. In practice, there may be even more subcontractors and
other intermediaries involved. Between the links in the contracting chain, responsibility
is often obscured or displaced, facilitating abuse and exploitation.

These problems are, of course, endemic to many situations of labor migration
around the world; for TCNs, however, the employer is ultimately the U.S. government.
The plaintiffs’ allegations in Adhikari v. Daoud, a lawsuit that has been
pending in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Texas since 2008,
illustrate some of the most egregious practices concerning TCNs. The plaintiffs
in Adhikari, mostly deceased and proceeding through kin, were Nepalis allegedly
promised jobs in luxury hotels in Jordan that paid $500 per month.48 They were
hired by a Nepali labor recruiter working on contract with a Jordanian job brokerage
company and transported by another Jordanian company to Amman, all at
the behest of Daoud and Partners, a Jordanian firm that was in turn subcontracted
by KBR.49 After each paying up to $3,500 in recruitment fees—paid for by
loans charging exorbitant interest—the plaintiffs arrived in Jordan only to have
their passports taken away.50 They were then put in an unprotected convoy
bound for Al Asad Air Force base in Ramadi, northern Iraq.51 Along the way,
Iraqi rebels seized a dozen of the Nepalis; they beheaded one and executed the
others with gunshots to the head.52

http://www.uclalawreview.org/pdf/62-1-3.pdf

I took a personal interest in this as I personally saw it for myself & disgusted me, most of the public is either unaware, doesn't care, & both. The only time I saw a TCN on a 24/7 news network was when Obama was served food in a chow line. A picture says a 1000 words, that brief clip said a million.

We went to DynCorp compound to pick up the TCNs which is a Saudi Arabian contractor. Qatar World Cup migrant worker abuses are well known but the vast majority of the abuses of the same migrant worker system isn't known.

A U.S. Fortress Rises in Baghdad:
Asian Workers Trafficked to Build World's Largest Embassy

John Owens didn’t realize how different his job would be from his last 27 years in construction until he signed on with First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting in November 2005. Working as general foreman, he would be overseeing an army of workers building the largest, most expensive and heavily fortified US embassy in the world. Scheduled to open in 2007, the sprawling complex near the Tigris River will equal Vatican City in size.

Then seven months into the job, he quit.

Not one of the five different US embassy sites he had worked on around the world compared to the mess he describes. Armenia, Bulgaria, Angola, Cameroon and Cambodia all had their share of dictators, violence and economic disruption, but the companies building the embassies were always fair and professional, he says. The Kuwait-based company building the $592-million Baghdad project is the exception. Brutal and inhumane, he says “I’ve never seen a project more fucked up. Every US labor law was broken.”

In the resignation letter last June, Owens told First Kuwaiti and US State Department officials that his managers beat their construction workers, demonstrated little regard for worker safety, and routinely breached security.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14173

Anyone that supports military action in Southwest Asia should understand, it will feature A LOT of the above.

[Octafish]

37. Wish we could ask Col. Ted Westhusing about training ''Third Country Nationals.''

US Army Col. Westhusing was in charge of training the new Iraqi army and overseeing civilian contractors. He is remembered as a good man, a brilliant man who followed the Cadet Code:

"I will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.”



Col. Westhusing was the Army's chief ethicist and someone who suspected something was wrong with David Petraeus, way back when. Then, just when he was about to come home to his loving wife and family, he became a suicide.

Is David Petraeus Dirty? Ted Westheusing Said So, and Then He Shot Himself

By Melina Hussein Ripcoco, Brilliant at Breakfast
Alternet.org
April 8, 2008

Ted Westhusing, was a champion basketball player at Jenks High School in Tulsa Oklahoma. A driven kid with a strong work ethic, he would show up at the gym at 7AM to throw 100 practice shots before school. He was driven academically too, becoming a National Merritt Scholarship finalist. His career through West Point and straight into overseas service was sterling, and by 2000 he had enrolled in Emory University to earn his doctorate in Philosophy. His dissertation was on honor and the ethics of war, with the opening containing the following passage: "Born to be a warrior, I desire these answers not just for philosophical reasons, but for self-knowledge." Would that all military commanders took such an interest in the study of ethics and morality and what our conduct in times of war says about our development as human beings. Would that any educational system in this country taught ethics, decision making, or even political science that's not part of an advanced degree anymore.

Ted Westhusing, the soldier, philosopher and ethicist, was given a guaranteed lifetime teaching position and West Point by the time he had finished with his service and his education. he felt like he could do more for his country by trying to shape the minds coming out of the academy that were the ones that would be military commanders. He had settled into that life with his wife and kids, when in 2004 he volunteered for active duty in Iraq, feeling like the experience would help his teaching. He had missed combat in his active duty and it seemed like an important piece for someone who not only philosophized about war, but who was also preparing the military's future leaders.

But more than that, he was sure that the Iraq mission was a just one; he supported the cause and he bought the information that was put in front of him. Considering that vials of powder were being tossed around hearings by the highest level of military commanders how could he not? This was a man who was so steeped in the patriotism of idealistic military fervor that he barely could fit in regular society. His whole being was dedicated to this path, and he was proud to serve his country.

Once in Iraq, he found himself straddling the fence between a questioning philosopher and an unquestioning soldier. Westhusing had thought he was freeing a country in bondage, keeping America safe from a horrible threat, and spreading democracy to a grateful people. But the reality of what was happening in this out of control war was too much for him. His mission was to oversee one of the most important tasks left from the war; retraining the Iraqi military by overseeing the private contractors that had been put in charge of it.

As the assignment went on he found that everywhere he looked he was seeing corrupt contractors doing shoddy work, abusing people, and stealing from the government. These contractors were being paid to do many of the jobs that would normally be done by a regulated military, and they bore out the worst fears of those who don't believe in outsourcing such vital work. He responded to the corruption that he saw by reporting the problems up the line, but the response from his commanding officers was disappointing. He had, for much of his career, idolized military commanders, and in that assignment he found himself with some of the military's most famous faces, doing the most important job, but he was terribly disappointed and alarmed to realize that they were greedy and corrupt themselves.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/81678/is_david_petraeus_dirty_ted_westhusing_said_so,_and_then_he_shot_himself

COMPLETE ORIGINAL ARTICLE URL for Waybac: http://www.ripcoco.com/2008/04/is-david-petraeus-dirty-ted-westheusing.html

Thank you for the heads-up on the UCLACLU stuff, JonLP24. Lots of new names to add to the steaming pile. One old one popped out: DynCorp's cachet should have opened up a lot jail cells, just for what is alleged. Now what kind of person would make money off war?

[Romeo.lima333]

24. he should be hung for all the people he got killed

[Octafish]

25. Bush knew it was a lie.

Yet, he lied America into war.

Millions are dead and crippled.

Trillions spent for no good reason.

And Bush and all the warmongers and banksters walk free.

[randys1]

27. I have known for years that my step son was sent into a war for reasons having

nothing to do with those given.

I have known for years that myself and my wife suffered endless days and nights with worry because those vile and filthy rightwing lying war criminals did this.

I have known about curveball for a long time and that W and company knew he was lying in time to NOT invade but invaded anyway

[Octafish]

30. I hope your son is back and A-OK.

My friend's family was not so fortunate. A son was an Army doctor, murdered by a fellow soldier in Iraq.

Army Maj. Matthew P. Houseal

While I didn't know Maj. Houseal, I went to high school with one of his younger siblings.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and all their enablers and liars should be in prison, along with these killers. The Bush cabal lied America into an illegal, immoral, unnecessary, and disastrous war for profit.

My friend's family will never be the same -- nor will those who know them.

And our nation and planet also will be the poorer for Bush Jr.'s war for decades to come.

[randys1]

38. Thanks, he is OK...he does cling to the lie that they found WMD, but I dont fault him

[KansDem]

35. And made war criminals of us all...

That's right: torture is a war crime and not some f*cking "frat prank" or "enhanced interrogation technique" as sounded by liars like Bill O'Reilly and his ilk.

We Americans are war criminals.

[Dont call me Shirley]

29. Put him in a room with Iraqi victims of his lies and let him say that again.

[sabrina 1]

32. And they knew he was lying. He was, according to reports from years ago,

a drunk.

I just asked about him the other day regarding Ukraine. We are getting the exact same kind of 'Curveball' like 'intel' from there from the same gang of neocons, as we got re Iraq. I think I asked 'is Curveball on the payroll again'? It was intended to be facetious, but maybe it wasn't.

His 'work' came to mind when I read some of the so-called 'intelligence' on Ukraine.

Now I'm wondering if the Rendon Group is on the payroll again also.

Judith Miller? Curveball? The Rendon Group? It worked so well for Iraq, why wouldn't they use it again together with the same Corporate Media War Propaganda machine?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

36. Bush would have used testimony from Mickey Mouse.

[wildbilln864]

39. and a kick! n/t

[spanone]

40. k&r...

[Cha]

41. Yeah, proud of all those people killed.. proud of ISIS?

[wildbilln864]

42. This should itself qualify as a war crime IMOOC. n/t