2008 Woodie Awards
"Curve Ball" takes control of U.S government with false information.
Elysa Polovin
Issue date: 11/16/07 Section: World
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After over $200 billion has been spent, more than 80,000 people have lost their lives and nearly five years have come and gone, many Americans are still questioning why the United States entered a war with Iraq in the first place. The identity of the man, who, according to Bob Simon on 60 Minutes, pulled off "one of the deadliest con jobs of our time," was recently released, stirring up even more controversy relating to the information that was used to initiate the war in Iraq.
"This was a freelance guy, a nobody who sold a bag of goods that got filtered up to the highest levels," said Robert Duncan, assistant professor of political science.
Rafid Ahmed Alwan, or better known as "Curve Ball," played a leading role in providing the information that Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet, President George W. Bush and many of our highest government officials used as their basis for declaring war on Iraq.
"Curve Ball was the one piece of evidence where they could say, 'Look at this. If they have this capability, where they can transport biological weapons, anthrax, all these horrible weapons, they can attack our troops with them. They can give them to terrorist groups,'" said CIA senior official Tyler Drumheller in an interview with 60 Minutes.
60 Minutes recently made it more apparent to the American public that this war was based upon false pretenses, which may or may not have affected the government's final decision.
"If they had not had Curve Ball they would have probably found something else," Drumheller said, " because there was a great determination to do it. But going to war in Iraq, under the circumstances we did, Curve Ball was the absolutely essential case."
In 1999, "Curve Ball" told German intelligence that he had previously been a chemical engineer in Saddam's Iraq and had been the director of a site called Djerf al Nadaf, just outside Baghdad. He said that the site was used to create mobile biological weapons, but as a cover was called a "seed purification plant." Upon investigation, however, U.S. officials discovered that Curve Ball's story could not be true.
"This was a freelance guy, a nobody who sold a bag of goods that got filtered up to the highest levels," said Robert Duncan, assistant professor of political science.
Rafid Ahmed Alwan, or better known as "Curve Ball," played a leading role in providing the information that Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet, President George W. Bush and many of our highest government officials used as their basis for declaring war on Iraq.
"Curve Ball was the one piece of evidence where they could say, 'Look at this. If they have this capability, where they can transport biological weapons, anthrax, all these horrible weapons, they can attack our troops with them. They can give them to terrorist groups,'" said CIA senior official Tyler Drumheller in an interview with 60 Minutes.
60 Minutes recently made it more apparent to the American public that this war was based upon false pretenses, which may or may not have affected the government's final decision.
"If they had not had Curve Ball they would have probably found something else," Drumheller said, " because there was a great determination to do it. But going to war in Iraq, under the circumstances we did, Curve Ball was the absolutely essential case."
In 1999, "Curve Ball" told German intelligence that he had previously been a chemical engineer in Saddam's Iraq and had been the director of a site called Djerf al Nadaf, just outside Baghdad. He said that the site was used to create mobile biological weapons, but as a cover was called a "seed purification plant." Upon investigation, however, U.S. officials discovered that Curve Ball's story could not be true.
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