Curveball

I read with amazement the declaration by Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, code name "Curveball," of how proud he and his sons were that he had fabricated the claim that Saddam Hussein's government had biological weapons in the run-up to the 2003 invasion and that this fabrication had provided Iraq with a margin of democracy.

The Seattle Times 2011

"Curveball" -- whose information was untrustworthy from the outset.

Scott Atran: The Moral Failure of Our National Intelligence 2009

The information in Powell's presentation had come from a "Chinese menu" and was "anything but an intelligence document," with some assertions based on the word of known fabricators such as the source code-named "Curveball" -- who had been served up by none other than Ahmed Chalabi.

William E. Jackson Jr.: Foggy Bottom Memos: The Hemorrhaging of Iraq War Minutes 2008

One of Litvinenko's associates, who at first claimed to also have been poisoned by polonium but has now been proven to be "Curveball" - grade prevaricator, is Mario Scaramella, a self-styled Italian spy who has charged that Italy's current Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, was a KGB spy.

Litvinenko's Death: Where the Far Right Meets International Crime 2006

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to the then US secretary of state Powell in the build-up to the invasion, said the lies of Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, also known by the codename Curveball, raised questions about how the CIA had briefed Powell ahead of his crucial speech to the UN security council presenting the case for war.

Curveball's admission 'raises questions about CIA' 2011

However, before we voted to authorise President George W Bush to invade Iraq, Congress was informed of the tenuous nature of numerous claims – including those of Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, otherwise known as Curveball – relating to the intelligence on a WMD programme in Iraq.

Letters: Curveball and the mass deception 2011

For instance, all the evidence cited by the White Housein our lead up to bombing, invading and occupying Iraq originated with three stoogesone could say -- a tortured man (Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi), a mentally deranged man (code-name Curveball) and a con-man with ties to Iran (Ahmad Chalibi).

It was just laying there--a scoop in broad daylight 2008

The most important source cited by Powell, who was given the codename Curveball, was never even interviewed by the CIA before the speech; investigators only learned later that Curveball was a relative of a top associate of Ahmad Chalabi, controversial leader of the Iraqi National Congress.

Terror Watch: Spooked? 2007

Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA European Division, on the Iraqi informant known as Curveball, the main source of the U.S. government's bogus claims that Iraq possessed biological weapons.

PERSPECTIVES 2007

The report cleared Chalabi and his group, however, of coaching or supplying to German intelligence a controversial defector known as Curveball, whose now-discredited tales about mobile biological weapons factories made it in to both public and private U.S. intelligence assessments on Saddam's WMD arsenal.

Terror Watch: From Downing Street to Capitol Hill 2007