Defector admits 'fabricating' crucial Iraq WMD intel: report
(AFP) – 37 minutes ago
LONDON — The defector whose claims that Iraq had biological weapons were used to justify the 2003 US invasion has admitted that he lied to help get rid of Saddam Hussein, the Guardian newspaper said Tuesday.
"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi told the British newspaper.
"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," he added.
Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials, told the BND, Germany's secret service, that Iraq had mobile bioweapons trucks and had built clandestine factories.
The faulty information formed the cornerstone of former US Secretary of State Colin Powell's key address to the United Nations on February 5, 2003.
"I had a problem with the Saddam regime," Janabi told the paper during a meeting in Germany. "I wanted to get rid of him and now I had this chance."
"I tell you something when I hear anybody, not just in Iraq but in any war, (is) killed, I am very sad. But give me another solution. Can you give me another solution?
"Believe me, there was no other way to bring about freedom to Iraq. There were no other possibilities," he continued.
German authorities approached Janabi in 2000 after identifying him as a Baghdad-trained chemical engineer with possible inside intelligence of former leader Hussein's regime.
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Anyone surprised?
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