It's not that we didn't already know, but the guy who lied us into invading Iraq has recently admitted that virtually everything he said -- which was the foundation of President Cheney's rationale for going there, and Colin Powell's sad performance at the UN -- was made up. Lies, deliberate lies.
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.
Tyler Drumheller, who says he warned the head of the US intelligence agency before the 2003 invasion of Iraq that Curveball might be a liar, said the confession would be a final wake-up call for the hawks who continued to believe that there had been WMD but that the CIA had been "too stupid" to find them.
"The interesting part for me is that he has recanted what he said, which is fascinating in the sense that I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that. Even now," he said.
Well, it's not like the hyping of lies had any real consequences, other than a few hundred thousand lives and a couple trillion USD lost. It's not as if it's had any adverse effects on the lives of tens of thousands of surviving soldiers and wrecked the economy. I mean, after all: we got a fine democracy out of the deal, showed Iran a thing or two, made Muslims around the world love us. Right?
