Source of Saddam Hussein's mobile biological weapons laboratories admits he made it all up
German, British and American intelligence services were either fooled, stupid or purposely accepted the falsehoods from the defector seeking asylum in Germany at that time. While the two former could be possible my bet is on the third point; that is to say they knew that it was more than likely lies but the claims of the Iraqi defector, codenamed “Agent Curveball”, came in so very handy to make a case against Saddam Hussein and for the invasion of Iraq. Whether it was the truth or not was never even taken into account.
The US and the UK went to war on unfounded accusations and false intelligence. We must remember that the claim of “Iraqi missiles being able to strike the UK within 45 minutes” also came from a very reliable source, not. It was something that an intelligence agent was told by a cab driver. Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph. A very reliable source indeed.
But, if the then US President George W. Bush and his poodle, the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, were to believed Saddam Hussein had all those weapons of mass destructions (WMDs) and would be able to launch them at a moment's notice and that those could reach Britain within three-quarters of an hour. No such possibility and the weapons did not even exist. To this very day none have been found.
While the Iraqi regime did indeed have, and did use, chemical weapons, against the Kurds and others, but those weapons were incapable of being launched at a long distance.
The Scud missiles were not even capable, as we all remember from the first Gulf War, of reaching, targeted, the Jewish entity in Palestine. So, how, pray, should they be able to ever get anywhere into the direction of Britain?
All this false intelligence, sexed up dossiers, etc., came in handy to sell the need for war to the respective electorates, whether in the US or the UK, and other European countries, despite the fact that all that was on the mind of the two main instigators, the USA and Britain, was getting rid off Saddam Hussein, an intelligence assent who had gone rogue.
The British and American intelligence services have a real bad track record of getting it wrong with putting assets in power, whether in Egypt, Iraq, and even Libya. Also, in a way, in Uganda, the former Rhodesia, and a few other places.
Interference in other people's and country's affairs has backfired so many times, in the far off history and also in the not so distant past. Maybe we should just get on with protecting the realm and not so-called “interests” in other places.
© 2011
