Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "CURVEBALL" .."Man whose WMD Lies Led to 100,000 Deaths Confesses All" [View all]KoKo
(84,711 posts)14. Remember Ahmed Chalabi....Curveball?
Invasion of Iraq
Ahmed Chalabi alongside US President George W. Bush and Jalal Talabani
Before the war, the CIA was largely skeptical of Chalabi and the INC, but information allegedly from his group (most famously from a defector codenamed "Curveball" made its way into intelligence dossiers used by President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to justify an invasion of Iraq. "Curveball" allegedly the brother of one of Chalabi's top lieutenants fed officials hundreds of pages of bogus "firsthand" descriptions of mobile biological weapons factories on wheels and rails. Secretary of State Colin Powell later used this information in a U.N. presentation trying to garner support for the war, despite warnings from German intelligence that "Curveball" was fabricating claims. Since then, the CIA has admitted that the defector made up the story, and Powell apologized for using the information in his speech. A later congressionally appointed investigation (Robb-Silberman) concluded that Curveball had no relation whatsoever to the INC, and that press reports linking Curveball to the INC were erroneous.[15]
The INC often worked with the media, most notably with Judith Miller, concerning her WMD stories for The New York Times starting on February 26, 1998.[16] After the war, given the lack of discovery of WMDs, most of the WMD claims of the INC were shown to have been either misleading, exaggerated, or completely made up while INC information about the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein's loyalists and Chalabi's personal enemies were accurate. Another of Chalabi's advocates was American Enterprise Institute's Iraq specialist Danielle Pletka. Chalabi received advice on media and television presentation techniques from the Irish scriptwriter and commentator Eoghan Harris prior to the invasion of Iraq.[17]
Chalabi in discussion with Paul Bremer and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
As U.S. forces took control during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, Chalabi returned under their aegis and was given a position on the Iraq interim governing council by the Coalition Provisional Authority. He served as president of the council in September 2003. He denounced a plan to let the UN choose an interim government for Iraq. "We are grateful to President Bush for liberating Iraq, but it is time for the Iraqi people to run their affairs," he was quoted as saying in The New York Times.[18]
In August 2003, Chalabi was the only candidate whose unfavorable ratings exceeded his favorable ones with Iraqis in a State Department poll.[19] In a survey of nearly 3,000 Iraqis in February 2004 (by Oxford Research International, sponsored by the BBC in the United Kingdom, ABC in the U.S., ARD of Germany, and the NHK in Japan), only 0.2 percent of respondents said he was the most trustworthy leader in Iraq (see survey link below, question #13). A secret document written in 2002 by the British Overseas and Defence Secretariat reportedly described Chalabi as "a convicted fraudster popular on Capitol Hill."[20]
In response to the WMD controversy, Chalabi told London's Daily Telegraph in February 2004, "We are heroes in error. As far as we're concerned, we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat."[21]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Chalabi
Ahmed Chalabi alongside US President George W. Bush and Jalal Talabani
Before the war, the CIA was largely skeptical of Chalabi and the INC, but information allegedly from his group (most famously from a defector codenamed "Curveball" made its way into intelligence dossiers used by President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to justify an invasion of Iraq. "Curveball" allegedly the brother of one of Chalabi's top lieutenants fed officials hundreds of pages of bogus "firsthand" descriptions of mobile biological weapons factories on wheels and rails. Secretary of State Colin Powell later used this information in a U.N. presentation trying to garner support for the war, despite warnings from German intelligence that "Curveball" was fabricating claims. Since then, the CIA has admitted that the defector made up the story, and Powell apologized for using the information in his speech. A later congressionally appointed investigation (Robb-Silberman) concluded that Curveball had no relation whatsoever to the INC, and that press reports linking Curveball to the INC were erroneous.[15]
The INC often worked with the media, most notably with Judith Miller, concerning her WMD stories for The New York Times starting on February 26, 1998.[16] After the war, given the lack of discovery of WMDs, most of the WMD claims of the INC were shown to have been either misleading, exaggerated, or completely made up while INC information about the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein's loyalists and Chalabi's personal enemies were accurate. Another of Chalabi's advocates was American Enterprise Institute's Iraq specialist Danielle Pletka. Chalabi received advice on media and television presentation techniques from the Irish scriptwriter and commentator Eoghan Harris prior to the invasion of Iraq.[17]
Chalabi in discussion with Paul Bremer and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
As U.S. forces took control during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, Chalabi returned under their aegis and was given a position on the Iraq interim governing council by the Coalition Provisional Authority. He served as president of the council in September 2003. He denounced a plan to let the UN choose an interim government for Iraq. "We are grateful to President Bush for liberating Iraq, but it is time for the Iraqi people to run their affairs," he was quoted as saying in The New York Times.[18]
In August 2003, Chalabi was the only candidate whose unfavorable ratings exceeded his favorable ones with Iraqis in a State Department poll.[19] In a survey of nearly 3,000 Iraqis in February 2004 (by Oxford Research International, sponsored by the BBC in the United Kingdom, ABC in the U.S., ARD of Germany, and the NHK in Japan), only 0.2 percent of respondents said he was the most trustworthy leader in Iraq (see survey link below, question #13). A secret document written in 2002 by the British Overseas and Defence Secretariat reportedly described Chalabi as "a convicted fraudster popular on Capitol Hill."[20]
In response to the WMD controversy, Chalabi told London's Daily Telegraph in February 2004, "We are heroes in error. As far as we're concerned, we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat."[21]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Chalabi
Edit history
Please sign in to view edit histories.
51 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
RecommendedHighlight replies with 5 or more recommendations
''We are heroes in error.'' -- Ahmed Chalabi, interim oil minister of NewIraq 4.3.
Octafish
Apr 2012
#41
Given the slight interest in this on this Democratic site...I wouldn't hold my breath....
KoKo
Apr 2012
#28
That is my express rationale for continuing to bring these inconvenient truths up for discussion.
Octafish
Apr 2012
#42
That was a "joke" he did at one of the DC dinners--correspondents, or one similar.
MADem
Apr 2012
#22
Actually, Powell was said to have called the script he was given "bullshit",
Art_from_Ark
Apr 2012
#33
Bullshit! He was nothing but a fig leaf for Cheney/Bush to cover their own lies.
Uncle Joe
Apr 2012
#21
Curveball could lie and lie all he wanted to. The Bush administration believed him and improved him.
Bolo Boffin
Apr 2012
#23
Curveball didn't talk to the Project for a New American Century. He talked to governments.
Bolo Boffin
Apr 2012
#31
I remember when I actually thought common sense would step in & the checks & balances
pacalo
Apr 2012
#35
That's been the way our country has been run for a long time. Look at the Viet Nam War.
Selatius
Apr 2012
#38
Probably far more than 100K deaths. Plus maiming, destruction of families, loss of cultural
wiggs
Apr 2012
#46
He was drunk out of his mind and we only used the translation from the German interrogations
underpants
Apr 2012
#50