"Curveball" lied, people died.

[Yonivore]

CBS is reporting that it has found the source of the bad Iraqi WMD intelligence; that would be one Rafid Ahmed Alwan, aka “Curveball.”

Are informants generally so aptly named?

The question, "Where did the WMD intel come from?," is a good question that everyone ignored in the rush to chant, “Bush lied!” As has been pointed out repeatedly, President Bush presented the nation and the UN with the same intelligence President Clinton used to justify the Iraqi Liberation Act, and our flyovers and occasional bombings in that country - intelligence that pre-dated the Bush administration. Hillary Clinton, in 2003, concurred, saying that the information President Bush was showing was “consistent with what we saw,” when she and her husband were in the White House.

I’ve always maintained that since both presidents used the same intelligence, either both lied, or both told the truth. CBS is saying neither President lied; they were duped.

Curve Ball is an Iraqi defector named Rafid Ahmed Alwan, who arrived at a German refugee center in 1999. To bolster his asylum case and increase his importance, he told officials he was a star chemical engineer who had been in charge of a facility at Djerf al Nadaf that was making mobile biological weapons.

[…]

He eventually wound up in the care of German intelligence officials to whom he continued to spin his tale of biological weapons. His plan succeeded partially because he had worked briefly at the plant outside Baghdad and his descriptions of it were mostly accurate. He embellished his account by saying 12 workers had been killed by biological agents in an accident at the plant.

More than a hundred summaries of his debriefings were sent to the CIA, which then became a pillar - along with the now-disproved Iraqi quest for uranium for nuclear weapons - for the U.S. decision to bomb and then invade Iraq. The CIA-director George Tenet gave Alwan’s information to Secretary of State Colin Powell to use at the U.N. in his speech justifying military action against Iraq.

After 9/11, it would have been unthinkable for any president to allow Saddam, with his history of using biological weapons, of attempting to assassinate an American President and of harboring terrorists like Abu Abbas, to maintain the status quo. And once upon a time, most Americans and most congressional creatures understood that, which is why the congress voted to depose Saddam and liberate the Iraqi people, a good move they’ve actually tried to distance themselves from, because it got difficult as Bush said it would. Some who talked up the action might have thought Iraq would be a “cakewalk,” but Bush told us it would be a “long, hard slog.”

You’d think this story - which goes to the root of the “lies” that brought us into Iraq after 9/11, and puts to rest the “Bush lied” mantra - would be grabbing headlines all over the place. Oh, I forgot, it puts to rest the “Bush lied” mantra.

The narrative is so ingrained, and so many have so much invested in it, that it would be remarkable - and inspiring - to see a few folk in the press and congress suggest (even if they do it grudgingly) that “maybe Bush didn’t ‘lie,’ maybe the rhetoric has been too harsh,” but I won’t hold my breath for it. And I know the Bush WH won’t do anything to correct the narrative because they never do.

But if things continue to look up in Iraq, some in congress might want to go look at their vote authorizing action once again, and maybe even take a little credit for taking part in an action that was bold and visionary, even if it was terribly, terribly difficult, (nothing great is easy) and which liberated millions of people who are learning to trust the US - after being let down by us, before - and are slowly, slowly, learning to throw off the yoke of tribalism and begin to self-govern.

If things continue to look up in Iraq, then someday America will look back and say, “we did something great, there, and - considering Japan and Germany - we did it in a remarkable space of time.” If things collapse there, well…then we will be looking at a very different world, altogether. In either case, perhaps it is time to put the blame on the Curveball, and hope that our at-bats get better.

[Yonivore]

In the same vein as this thread, the Associated Press recounts Joe Biden's encounter with a group of fourth-graders in New Hampshire, under the headline "Biden's History Lesson to Fourth-Graders." Someone asked Biden, "How did the war in Iraq start?" Here is Biden's answer:

"Osama bin Laden set up camps there, and he was getting a lot of help from folks running that country called Afghanistan. And that's where he planned an attack on America to bring the World Trade Towers down and kill all those innocent Americans. We had a right to, and we should've gone, to Afghanistan to try to get bin Laden and those people who've done very bad things to America," he said.

"But the president, I think, he got a little confused," he continued. "I think he thought the folks in another country, way, way far away, far from here, it's also far from Afghanistan, called Iraq. He said, 'The guy in Iraq he helped bin Laden do bad things to us,' and he didn't. He wasn't a good guy, but he didn't help. So we used that kind of as an excuse to attack Iraq."

Actually, President Bush has never said that Saddam's Iraq had anything to do with the September 11 attacks. One would think that Biden must know this, even if the AP reporter doesn't. So one wonders: after four years, have the Democrats started to believe their own propaganda, or is Joe Biden really willing to lie to a group of schoolchildren?

[boutons_]

dubya/ head/neo- s went shopping for any "intel" they could fish up as pretext to invade Iraq and grab the oil.

yoni knows dubya's Iraq invasion is a failure, so tries to drag in anybody else to share the blame.


WMD, aluminum tubes, yellowcake, curveball, mobile weapons labs, Saddam-WTC, Saddam-AQ, etc, etc. ALL were total smoke-and-mirrors bull LIES to coverup the grab for oil.

Iraq is ed and broken, the Iraqi people are ed, Iraq is par ioned in practice, dubya ed Iraq in every which way possible. NOTHING "great" about it.

loser yoni perpetually keeps shilling for loser dubya

you're doing a heckuva job, yoni

[Yonivore]

@ boutons and I don't even know what he said. But, if it's any resemblance to the disconnected, spittle-spraying, nonsense that caused me to put him on ignore, it's probably a good exclamation point on my posts.

Thanks boutons.

[boutons_]

yoni, you and WC have become objects of ridicule for you undying, lying support for dubya and his LONG string of fiascos, incompetences, and geo-political and domestic ups.

[FromWayDowntown]

Just to help out Yonivore: http://theanchoressonline.com/2007/1...eball-on-iraq/

By the way, is this finally an admission that there really weren't WMD's in Iraq?

[ChumpDumper]

"They're still translating the do ents!"

[Yonivore]

Just to help out Yonivore: http://theanchoressonline.com/2007/1...eball-on-iraq/

Hey thanks! I'm not sure there'll be anymore at her site, but knock yourself out.

By the way, is this finally an admission that there really weren't WMD's in Iraq?

No; Because there were.

[ChumpDumper]

"All the volatile chemical agents were flown on passenger jets to Syria because everyone knows how easy and safe it is to do such a thing on a moment's notice."

[ChumpDumper]

And really, is this the first time Yoni has ever heard of Curveball?

No, there is no reason to blame Curveball. Curveball didn't give the order to invade.

[Nbadan]

After 9/11, it would have been unthinkable for any president to allow Saddam, with his history of using biological weapons, of attempting to assassinate an American President and of harboring terrorists like Abu Abbas, to maintain the status quo. And once upon a time, most Americans and most congressional creatures understood that, which is why the congress voted to depose Saddam and liberate the Iraqi people, a good move they’ve actually tried to distance themselves from, because it got difficult as Bush said it would. Some who talked up the action might have thought Iraq would be a “cakewalk,” but Bush told us it would be a “long, hard slog.”

Errrr.........

[Nbadan]

...besides, it's not like there weren't other reliable intelligence sources in Iraq, almost every major nation including Israel had intelligence sources in Iraq, it's just that they didn't give the Neocons the 'smoking-gun' that they wanted....yes, they cherry picked intelligence and their source of choice was curveball.....

[George Gervin's Afro]

This almost becoming laughable. Bush oversold a war we didn't have to fight. He had no past war plan. He and the criticized our allies and Democrats who had the audacity to question the wisdom and planning of this fiasco. Now after 4 yrs all we can hope for is an islamic democracy based on the quoran.. priceless..

[Yonivore]

Errrr.........

Regime change accomplished.

[PixelPusher]

Regime change accomplished.

Really? Which regime is "in charge" now?

[boutons_]

'Regime change accomplished."

Saddam changed out, and a still-born, emasculated "democratic" "govt" installed, but it hasn't turned out to be the intended US oil-donating-puppet. The Kurds are going their own way, while the rest of Iraq is par ioned into Shiite and Sunni regions.

Iraq still hasn't approved the law which gives oilfield ownership for 30 years to foreign oilcos. tsk tsk What a shame.

[George Gervin's Afro]

As I am watching 60 Minutes the more I hear I know Bush and misled us to war. He wasn't even in Iraq during the time for some of the things he supposedly witnessed..

I wish we had someone with the balls to present articles of impeachment...

[SRJ]

I wish we had someone with the balls to present articles of impeachment...

If the case against Bush is as substantial as liberals believe, it wouldn't take "balls" to present articles of impeachment. Bush isn't popular and his party is in the minority in both houses of Congress. More than likely, the case for impeachment is not a strong one.

I'd love to see all of your Bush/Cheney dartboards and voodoo dolls; I'll bet some of them are quite creative and funny.

[boutons_]

"case for impeachment is not a strong one."

Neither was the harassment case of impeaching Clinton, but that didn't stop the Repugs. In fact, their main objective, in sync with their general witch-hunting of both Clintons throughout the 90s, was primarily harassment. The Repugs had to have known they couldn't get impeachment voted up in the Repug-controlled Senate.

dubya/ head/rummy/condi/powell actually have wasted US blood on their hands. Totally impeachable.

[101A]

"case for impeachment is not a strong one."

Neither was the harassment case of impeaching Clinton, but that didn't stop the Repugs. In fact, their main objective, in sync with their general witch-hunting of both Clintons throughout the 90s, was primarily harassment. The Repugs had to have known they couldn't get impeachment voted up in the Repug-controlled Senate.

dubya/ head/rummy/condi/powell actually have wasted US blood on their hands. Totally impeachable.

It was perjury; he lied under oath.

It was a slam-dunk
.
And you brought it up, don't go ranting on me.

[xrayzebra]

Let me see if I have this right. Germany and France didn't want
war with Iraq because "they" knew Saddam had no WMD.
It wasn't because they had some many lucrative contracts with
him that was bringing in gobs of money.

Everyone knew he didn't have WMD because he used them on
the Kurds and Iran numerous times. Okay, got that.

AQ was in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and most
other ME countries And they bombed
the good old USA. but they weren't in Iraq. Okay got that.

Yeah, guess you are all correct. Bush and his bunch just wanted
to invade Iraq for the oil.

Oh, and don't forget. Iran isn't trying to get the bomb.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Let me see if I have this right. Germany and France didn't want
war with Iraq because "they" knew Saddam had no WMD.
It wasn't because they had some many lucrative contracts with
him that was bringing in gobs of money.

Everyone knew he didn't have WMD because he used them on
the Kurds and Iran numerous times. Okay, got that.

AQ was in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and most
other ME countries And they bombed
the good old USA. but they weren't in Iraq. Okay got that.

Yeah, guess you are all correct. Bush and his bunch just wanted
to invade Iraq for the oil.

Oh, and don't forget. Iran isn't trying to get the bomb.

Noticed you didn't mentiopn that the guy we used to justify the invasion was a fraud. I guess him not even being in Iraq during the time he was to have supposedly seen certain things doesn't bother you. yet the dimm-o-craps do? this guy lied and we went to war overit and you still complaining about dimmo-craps.

[xrayzebra]

Oh, I thought you knew he was our only source of intelligence.
And really we did debrief him, not some other government. And cherry picked what he said.
Got it.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Oh, I thought you knew he was our only source of intelligence.
And really we did debrief him, not some other government. And cherry picked what he said.
Got it.

doesn't this bother you a little bit?

[Yonivore]

Noticed you didn't mentiopn that the guy we used to justify the invasion was a fraud. I guess him not even being in Iraq during the time he was to have supposedly seen certain things doesn't bother you. yet the dimm-o-craps do? this guy lied and we went to war overit and you still complaining about dimmo-craps.

I love the absolutist narrative you're trying to draw here.

First, WMDs were the ONLY justification for going to war in Iraq. Not true, but you wouldn't be disabused of the notion.

And, now, since you've accepted as fact that WMDs were the ONLY justification for going to war in Iraq, then this guy "Curveball" was the ONLY source used to justify the ONLY justification for going to war in Iraq.

That corner into which you've painted yourself must be getting pretty tight.