By Dave Anderson:
To paraphrase Machiavelli --- don't trust exiles as they will tell you whatever they believe will help you advance their interest to return home and in power.
That is basic statecraft, that is basic intelligence/spying, that is just basic poltiical awareness. Exiles don't like being exiles on the whole, that is why it is such an effective punishment. However Curveball and other Iraqi exiles, including Chalabi were believed and promoted as completely truthful and disinterested partisans for the Untied States (as the US never has any interests besides freedom and apple pie... no snark here at all....)
The Guardian spoke with Curveball recently:
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."
Yes, the entire scheme was based on a good con so the Very Serious People would have found some patsy that they could say whooocooddanown about that when there was no serious threat to any nation from Iraq, but still, don't insult the dirty fucking hippies intelligence by fucking up Machiavelli 101.
Oh yeah, note bene, most of the "intelligence" on Iran is coming from Iranian exile groups including MEK. Keep that in mind whenever you read a breathless report.
No comments:
Post a Comment