About those "Seeds of Democracy"

By J. Thomas Duffy

Well, this isn't exactly a Captain Renault moment:

Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has 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."

Since Obama has chosen not to look in the rearview mirror, we can only hope that history will not be so kind and place the Bush Grindhouse and its legacy in the appropriate light -- The President of Shitdom.

And the Flying Monkeys over at the Right Wing Freakshow still want to headline that it was all that "planting seeds of democracy" bullshit.



Bonus Riffs

John Cole: You Told Me you Loved Me, But I Don’t Understand

Adam Serwer: Conservatives keep hogging credit for Mideast protests

For The Want Of A Lie

It Will Never Be A Happy "Mission Accomplished" Day

"Son of A Dog!"

(Cross-posted on The Garlic.)

The incredibility of Curveball

By Michael J.W. Stickings

"Curveball" -- the Iraqi exile who, through German's Federal Intelligence Service (BND), provided disinformation (i.e., lies) that served as one of the key planks in Bush's pre-Iraq War case against Saddam on alleged WMDs -- has finally spoken publicly (via TPM)..

Largely discredited and living in Germany, where he hardly lives like a king, Rafid Ahmed Alwan now claims that he is "not guilty," that "[e]verything that's been written about [him] isn't true."

Before the war, he was one of the U.S. intelligence community's top sources, or so it thought, on alleged Iraqi WMDs. He claimed that Iraq had mobile germ labs for biological warfare, and that falsehood ended up at the very center of the effort to sell the war. Most notably, it ended up in Colin Powell's infamous presentation to the U.N. in February 2003.

Michael Isikoff and David Corn delve into the Curveball scandal in great detail in their book Hubris. Basically, Curveball was fully discredited long before the war began. The BND never allowed the CIA or any other U.S. intelligence agency access to him. He was known to be a drunk. And it was widely suspected, both by German and (some) U.S. officials, both in the CIA and elsewhere, that his information was not credible.

Even now, he seems to be a liar:

"I never said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, never in my whole life," he said. "I challenge anyone in the world to get a piece of paper from me, anything with my signature, that proves I said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

How did the Bush administration get it so wrong?

"I'm not the source of these problems," he said.

Well, he said enough to the Germans and, through them, to the Americans to persuade them early on that Iraq had WMD capabilities. And he likely did so in order to secure a comfortable living in Germany: "For what I've done, I should be treated like a king."

But this does not excuse the BND, which knew he wasn't a reliable source, and it certainly doesn't excuse the CIA, or those at the CIA who were pushing false intelligence, or who didn't seem to know what was going on and/or neglected to look into it, or who were feeding the warmongers at the White House and the Pentagon what they most wanted, which was anything on alleged Iraqi WMDs, true or not, to feed both to the American people and to the rest of the world.

The Bush Administration didn't get it so wrong because of Curveball, however much of a liar he may have been, but because it didn't seem to matter to the warmongers from Bush on down whether they got it right or wrong at all. There were ample warnings questioning Curveball's credibility, as well as the credibility of other such sources, but the warmongers believed what they wanted to believe, so rooted were they in their own fanaticism, and didn't let anything like the truth get in the way.

Lies were used to sell the war. And it's been a war of lies ever since.

Canada's radioactive problem

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Readers of this blog may know that I am not one to (over)hype the terrorist threat. It is what it is, and it is serious, but it is not as the fearmongers would have us believe it is. Regardless, this -- this isn't good:

At least 76 radioactive devices -- several of which could be used in a terrorist attack -- have gone missing in Canada over the last five years, newly compiled figures show.

They're stolen from cars, disappear from construction sites, fall off trucks and generally go astray at an alarming pace.

The Canadian Press has compiled a database showing the rate at which these widely used devices vanish, often for days, sometimes without a trace.

It chronicles dozens of thefts and mishaps involving hazardous equipment employed daily in tasks ranging from oil-well measurements to pioneering medical research.

Thirty-five of these were nabbed by thieves. Three others were found in a roadside ditch, a garbage landfill and a farmer's field.

And at last count dozens were still missing.

A danger, of course, is that these "devices" could "be used to craft a crude radioactive explosion, or dirty bomb," by those who wish us harm. Sure, that threat can be overhyped, too, but it is, I think, a genuine one. Given that Canada is fighting the war in Afghanistan, it is not unreasonable to think that Canada could be a target. Or these devices and materials would find their way into the hands of terrorists for use in the U.S., say, or elsewhere.

This is not just an embarrassment for Canada, it's an appalling case of irresponsibility. One would think that guarding such devices and materials would be a top priority of our national security establishment. Now, however, one wonders.

The WMDs! The WMDs!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

They've been found!

But don't get too excited. They're not what or where you think they are:

1) They're American, not Iraqi.

2) They're at the bottom of the ocean all around the U.S.

Nice.

**********

I found this interesting post at a site called Deep Sea News -- which I didn't know existed until just now. (Isn't the Internet great?) It includes a map of "WMDs close to home," and it's scary stuff.

Back in November 2005, the old DSN site explained the situation (or part of it): "Recently unclassified data shows 64 million pounds of nerve gas and mustard gas; 400,000 chemical bombs, landmines and rockets, and 500 tons of radioactive waste dumped in the sea before Congress banned the practice in 1972." Also: "New Zealand recently made a diplomatic query into the matter, because new records show the US dumped allied and enemy stockpiles off whatever country the weapons were in when World War II ended. Those countries include Australia, India, Japan, Italy, France and Denmark. It is unclear whether New Zealand is affected, but deep currents can disperse deadly materials over broad scales."

There has been extensive coverage of this story -- which I suspect is unknown to many -- at the Daily Press (Newport News, Virginia). The "Special Report" is called "The Deadliness Below," and I encourage you to have a look (and to read through it). If I may make a gross understatement, it's quite something.

Who knew the U.S. was literally surrounded by WMDs?