Rafid Ahmed Alwan | |
|---|---|
| Born | Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi 1968 (age 57–58) Iraq |
| Other names | Curveball |
| Alma mater | Baghdad University |
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi (Arabic:رافد أحمد علوان الجنابي,Rāfid Aḥmad Alwān; born 1968), known by theDefense Intelligence Agencycryptonym "Curveball",[1] is a German-French citizen whodefected fromIraq in 1999, claiming that he had worked as achemical engineer at a plant that manufacturedmobile biological weapon laboratories as part of anIraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program.[2] Alwan's allegations were subsequently shown to be false by theIraq Survey Group'sfinal report published in 2004.[3][4]
Despite warnings from theGermanFederal Intelligence Service and the BritishSecret Intelligence Service questioning the authenticity of the claims, the US and British governments utilized them to build arationale for military action in the lead up to the2003 invasion of Iraq, including in the2003 State of the Union address, where the US PresidentGeorge W. Bush said, "We know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs", and US Secretary of StateColin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council, which contained a computer generated image of a mobile biological weapons laboratory.[2][5] They were suggested to be mobile production trucks for artillery balloons.[6] On 24 September 2002, the British government published its dossier on the former Iraqi leader'sWMD with a personal foreword by British Prime MinisterTony Blair, who assured readers Iraqi PresidentSaddam Hussein had continued to produce WMD "beyond doubt".[7]
On 4 November 2007, the US television news program60 Minutes revealed Curveball's real identity.[8] Former CIA officialTyler Drumheller summed up Curveball as "a guy trying to get his green card essentially, in Germany, andplaying the system for what it was worth".[2] Alwan lives inGermany, where he has been granted asylum.[9]
In a February 2011 interview with British newspaperThe Guardian, Alwan "admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war".[9]
Rafid Ahmed Alwan studied chemical engineering at university but received low marks. He also worked at the Babel television production company in Baghdad, which was owned bySaddam Hussein's sonUday; sometime after leaving his job, a warrant was issued for his arrest because of theft from the same company.[8]
Curveball's story began in November 1999 when Alwan, then in his early 30s, arrived atMunich'sFranz Josef Strauss Airport with atourist visa. Upon entering the country, he applied for political asylum because he had embezzled Iraqi government money and faced prison or worse if sent home. The German refugee system sent him toZirndorf, a refugee center nearNuremberg.[10]
After he arrived at the refugee center, he changed his story. Alwan's new story included that after he had graduated at the top of hischemical engineering class at Baghdad University in 1994,[11] he worked for "Dr. Germ," the pseudonym of British-trainedmicrobiologistRihab Rashid Taha, to lead a team that built mobile labs to produce lethalbiological WMD.[11]
The Germans listened to his claims and debriefed him starting in December 1999,[12] continuing to September 2001. Although the Americans did not have "direct access" to Curveball,[13][14] information collected by theBND debriefing team was later passed on in part to theDefense Intelligence Agency in the United States.[15] As an incentive to keep supplying information to German intelligence, Curveball had been granted asylum, as he had applied earlier in 1999 and failed.[16] He had enough money that he did not have to work. He gave many hours of testimony about Iraq'sWMD program and, in particular, itsmobile weapons laboratories. Despite CIA technicians and weapon experts finding major flaws and inconsistencies with the designs and systems he asserted the military was developing, this information made it to the American government and although there were wide doubts and questions about the claimed informant's reliability and background, assertions attributed to Curveball claiming that Iraq was creatingbiological agents in mobile weapons laboratories to elude inspectors appeared in more than 112United States government reports between January 2000 and September 2001.[17] His assertions eventually made it intoUnited States Secretary of StateColin Powell's address on February 5, 2003 to theUnited Nations detailing Iraq's weapons programs.
According to a Danish state TV documentary, DR1 Dokumentaren "Manden som løj verden i krig"[18] broadcast on 21 April 2010, Curveball was still living in Germany under protection from the German police. Danish TV filmed Rafid and recorded clips of a conversation with him, before he called the police and had the TV crew banned from his neighbourhood.[citation needed]
In 2003, inspectors led byDavid Kay conducted an additional investigation of Curveball's credibility. They found, among other things, that he had been placed last in his university class when he had claimed to have been placed first, and that he had been jailed for embezzlement before fleeing to Germany.
In response to public criticism,U.S. PresidentBush initiated aninvestigative commission that released their report on March 31, 2005. Bush's investigative commission came to many conclusions, including:
The Bush administration laid blame on the CIA, criticising its officials for "failing to investigate" doubts about Curveball, which emerged after an October 2002National Intelligence Estimate. In May 2004, over a year after the invasion of Iraq, the CIA concluded formally that Curveball's information was fabricated. Furthermore, on June 26, 2006,The Washington Post reported that "the CIA acknowledged that Curveball was acon artist who drove ataxi in Iraq and spun his engineering knowledge into a fantastic but plausible tale about secret bioweapons factories on wheels."[16]
On April 8, 2005,CIA DirectorPorter Goss ordered an internal review of the CIA to determine why doubts about Curveball's reliability were not forwarded to policymakers. Former CIA DirectorGeorge Tenet and his former deputy,John E. McLaughlin, announced that they were not aware of doubts about Curveball's veracity before the war. However,Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA's European division, told theLos Angeles Times that "everyone in the chain of command knew exactly what was happening."[1]
In February 2011, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi admitted for the first time that he lied about his story regarding Iraq's secret biological weapons program.[9] He also admitted to being shocked that his false story was used as a justification for theIraq War but proud that the fabrications helped toppleSaddam Hussein.
According to the Danish filmThe Man Who Lied the World Into War, after he was found by the documentary makers and they put questions to the chief security and spy services of his new home country, he lost his job (in a company described by the document makers as a cover where his position had been "marketing specialist") and where he received a "salary with flat". After this, when he had to get back to the social one-room flat and live on social security benefits, he phoned the documentary makers proposing an interview for €40,000. He also showed papers which, according to him, clearly proved that a contract between him and this "cover company" had been signed for 15 years, starting in 1999/2000, with a monthly salary of €3,000.[26][27]
Janabi also features inThe spies who fooled the world, a 2013Panorama documentary made by Peter Taylor for BBC Television, in which Janabi repeats the admissions of fabrication previously made to the Guardian newspaper.[28]
Allegedly because the Iraqi informant disliked Americans,[21]Germany's intelligence service (BND) classified him as a "blue" source, meaning the Germans would not permit U.S. access to him ("red" sources were allowed American contact).[10] Later evidence indicated that he was in fact pro-American, and that the Germans were guarding their source.[29] The Germans did pass on information to the American intelligence agencies, and the informant was given the codename "Curveball". Despite it being an American term, the Americans deny coining the name, and its origin is uncertain. The basecryptonym "ball" had been used during theCold War when dealing with informants who had intelligence about weapons.[10][30]
He speaks to his BND debriefers in Arabic through a translator, and also in broken English and German. Curveball says that he worked for Iraq's Military Industrial Commission after graduating first in his class from engineering school at Baghdad University in 1994 (He actually graduated last (see 1994)). A year later, he says, he was assigned to work for "Dr. Germ", British-trained microbiologistRihab Rashid Taha, to construct mobile biological weapons labs. But Curveball never says that he actually produced biological weapons or witnessed anyone else doing so, and the BND is unable to verify his claims. Curveball's statements are recorded in German, shared with a local Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) team, and sent to the US, where they are translated into English for analysis at the DIA's directorate for human intelligence in Clarendon, Va. "This was not substantial evidence," one senior German intelligence official later recalls in an interview with theLos Angeles Times. "We made clear we could not verify the things he said." The reports are then sent to the CIA's Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Center (WINPAC), whose experts analyze the data and share it with artists who use Curveball's accounts to render sketches.
From January 2000 to September 2001, the Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) Human Intelligence disseminated almost 112 reports from Curveball regarding mobile BW facilities in Iraq. These reports did not come directly from Curveball, but were transferred through a "foreign liaison."
Footnote 274 [of theIraq Intelligence Commission] elaborates, explaining that "when [DIA] pressed for access to Curveball, [BND] said that Curveball disliked Americans and that he would refuse to speak to them."
It has now emerged that Curveball is the brother of a top aide of Ahmad Chalabi, the pro-western Iraqi former exile with links to the Pentagon.
