Curveball: Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi Admits Iraq WMD Lie

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi,Known as 'Curveball', Admits to Lying about Iraq WMDs

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, who defected from Iraq in 1995 and was known as 'Curveball' within US intelligence circles, has admitted publicly for the first time that he lied about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi told The Guardian that he was horrified to see his made-up story used to justify the US invasion of Iraq, and claims that his US handlers promised him that, if he cooperated with them, they would bring his wife and children to Germany, where he was living at the time.

Saying that he hated Saddam Hussein, al Janabi said, "I wanted to get rid of him and now I had this chance." Curveball's assertion wasn't the sole justification for the march to war: he was just one man, and nobody was ever able to find real evidence of WMDs in Iraq prior to the invasion. Indeed, few outside the White House accepted the theory that such weapons existed.

It's widely accepted that the US invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with WMDs. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted in his memoirs that he knew that the WMD claim was BS, though Tyler Drumheller, former CIA chief in Europe, is pretending that al-Janabi's revelation is news to him, saying "I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that."

Over 100,000 civilians have been killed in the US-led invasion of Iraq.