I am not sure what to make of this story. No doubt many of you long time blogsphere members will remember
Judith Miller and her now debunked reporting on Iraq's WMD which lead to our invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Well, it seems CNN has interviewed "Curveball" and damn if I am not amazed at the stupidity of using this man as a source.
CNN
As slides depicting drawings of the supposed germ labs flashed on a
big screen in the Security Council's chamber, Powell drove his point
home:
"The source is an eyewitness, an Iraqi chemical engineer, who supervised one of these facilities."
Just days after Powell's presentation, U.N. weapons inspectors
presented evidence they said disproved those claims. But six weeks
later, on March 20, 2003, the United States launched its invasion,
toppling Hussein's government in three weeks but locking itself in a
war against an insurgency that has cost more than 4,000 American lives.
No biological weapons, no germ labs, no weapons of mass destruction
of any kind were found in Iraq after the invasion. Curveball -- Rafid
Alwan -- remained in hiding in Germany, where he had been interviewed
by the German intelligence service, the BND.
Subsequent U.S.
investigations into the intelligence failure around the claims found
that German intelligence considered the defector "crazy" and "out of
control," while friends said he was a "liar."
Here's the kicker; not only did the CIA not talk to him, but simply relied on the word of the German intelligence agency.
And, it turned
out, the CIA not only never spoke with him, it never even saw
transcripts of the German interviews, only the Germans' analysis of the
interviews.
[...]
Norbert Juretzko, a former BND officer who is familiar with the
Curveball case, now criticizes the German intelligence service for its
handling of the matter. The BND wanted so badly to believe Alwan,
Juretzko said, that the case officers didn't notice inconsistencies in
his story.
"He was put under pressure by the BND: 'Tell us
something,'" Juretzko said. "They were desperate for something. They
gave him money, privileges, a visa and the like. And so this man used
his imagination to get all these things."
No wonder
Colin Powell's honest response to the information was "bullshit."
My God. BushCo™ was so desperate for any reason to invade Iraq, they
ignored all the obvious signs back then of this guy simply being out of
his element and scared to death. Hell, from what I can see, he is still
out of his element and scared to death.
Another kicker; he has a lawyer keeping him from going to far.
Alwan brought with him to our meeting documents to
prove his identity, certificates saying he has a degree in chemical
engineering from Technical University in Baghdad and a student ID card
from a German college. Multiple intelligence sources told CNN that the
man we spoke with was, indeed, Curveball.
[...]
Alwan had brought with him a second man, introduced only as "Mr.
Ali." Mr. Ali was also wearing a flashy suit with a peach-colored
shirt, and he seemed to be coaching Alwan, making strange signals
behind my back.
As I talked to Alwan, I could feel the wind from
Mr. Ali frantically waving his arms. Whenever Alwan began to offer
details, Mr. Ali made a time out signal with his hands, and Alwan
stopped talking.
When he wasn't prevented from talking by Mr.
Ali, Alwan answered questions in a roundabout manner, sometimes
backtracking and correcting himself, sometimes telling completely
different stories in the same sentence.
And some people wonder why the reputation of the United States is in the shitter.
