Image via WikipediaThe British newspaper, The Guardian reported recently that an Iraqi defector made up the claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction to help topple his dictatorial government.
The defector, allegedly Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, said in an interview with The Guardian that he fabricated claims of mobile biological weapons and clandestine factories made to German intelligence officials throughout 2000.
Former US president, George W Bush and senior US officials cited the threat posed by Iraqi biological weapons as justification for the US-led invasion in 2003.
The world now knows no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, and as a consequence of what are now revealed as pathetic lies, years of political and sectarian bloodletting followed in Iraq, resulting in more than 100,000 deaths, mostly civilians
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"Maybe I was right, maybe I wasn't right," Janabi, codenamed "Curveball" by American and German intelligence officials and identified as a chemical engineer, told the newspaper.
"I had a problem with the Saddam regime," he said."I wanted to get rid of him and now I had this chance."
History and the world will never shed any tears for the monsterous Saddam Hussein and his rotten regime, but they will undoubtably question whether Mr Janabi's actions justified the means.
The information supplied by Janabi formed the basis of a 2003 speech by secretary of state , Colin Powell, before the United Nations Security Council.
"They gave me this chance to fabricate something to topple the regime," Janabi said.
"Believe me, there was no other way to bring about freedom in Iraq. There were no other possibilities."
Saddam Hussein and his despicable regime has gone, and he and many of his fellow perpetrators of evil have been executed or imprisoned, but it would be a stretch of the imagination to say Iraq and its people are free.
Iraq is on the cusp of civil war, and the coalition of the willing has all but withdrawn from Iraq.
Acknowledgements: Reuters, Peter Petterson
