By Chris Daly
This story was, I suppose, inevitable. But it is important to establish the historical record of the Bush years.
Here’s the nub of what the Iraqi source known by his nickname “Curveball” told the Guardian this week:
Everything he had said about the inner workings of Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons programme was a flight of fantasy – one that, he now claims was aimed at ousting the Iraqi dictator. Janabi, a chemical engineering graduate who had worked in the Iraqi industry, says he looked on in shock as Powell’s presentation revealed that the Bush administration’s hawkish decisionmakers had swallowed the lot. Something else left him even more amazed; until that point he had not met a US official, let alone been interviewed by one.
“I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime,” he told the Guardian in a series of interviews carried out in his native Arabic and German. “I and my sons are proud of that, and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy.”
What’s missing are comments from:
President George W. Bush
Secretary of State Colin Powell
National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice
CIA Director George Tenet
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Journalists should be staking out every one of these people and demanding answers.
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