War on Demand: Role of Curveball in Iraq war

Rafid Ahmed Alwan,

Monowara Begum Moni

His name is Rafid Ahmed Alwan, an Iraqi Ingineer, came to Germany in 1999 as asylant. His goal was to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and get asylum in Germany. As usual, his interrogations were recorded by the German Secret service BND. BND noticed him during regular interrogation.

Aljanabi also reported that he was responsible for purchasing parts for the al-Hakam factory for a year and a half. Known as a biological weapons production site, it was destroyed in 1996 under United Nations supervision.

According to the Germans, President Bush mischaracterized Curveball’s information when he warned before the war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons.

Alwan said he had worked in Iraq at the ‘Chemical Engineering and Design Center’ - a front company in Saddam’s secret weapons program. He added that he had been responsible for purchasing parts for the Al-Hakam factory for a year and a half. Known as a biological weapons production site, it was demolished in 1996 under UN supervision.

Since then, there have been attempts by the American side to pass the buck to the Federal Intelligence Service. Alwan’s statements about the alleged weapons of mass destruction were used by the Bush administration to justify the Iraq war, and US Secretary of State Colin Powell cited his statements to the UN Security Council as evidence of Baghdad’s illegal weapons programs.

But he lied about essential points such as the alleged existence of rolling biological weapons laboratories and a poison accident.

He had no idea of this secret name for years. ‘At first I didn’t even know that I had gotten involved with a secret service. Believe me, I didn’ want a war. All I wanted was to overthrow Saddam Hussein’. Curveball lives under an assumed name in southern Germany. The BND has given him a furnished apartment, language lessons and a stipend generous enough that he does not need to work.

Rafed Aljanabi was the informant for the Federal Intelligence Service who is said to have started the Iraq war. The world’s most powerful at the time, from US President George W. Bush to Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to Foreign Ministers Colin Powell and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, had dealt with him. Today he lives inconspicuously with his wife and two children in an attic apartment, the family lives on social help. Rafed has lived in different places with. One of them is world-famous: its alias ‘Curveball’ (something such as a  question  or  event  that is  surprising  or  unexpected, and  therefore   difficult  to  deal  with.

The former chemical engineer Rafed Ahmed Alwan, as he was called until his name was changed in 2008, is at the center of one of the biggest scandals in the history of the secret service, which put the relationship between Germany and the USA to the test and which continues to move politics today. Iraqi Rafed Aljanabi told the BND lies about weapons of mass destruction. The US used the unverified statements to justify the war.

Nevertheless, ‘curveball's, fake information, were sold to the public as evidence of biological weapons production in Iraq and thus as a reason for war Secretary of State Colin Powell cited his statements to the UN Security Council as evidence of Baghdad’s illegal weapons programs. Colin Powell didn`t say: I was the only reason for this war.” He talked about three things: First of all, Uranium, secondly, Al-Qaida and thirdly, my story, said Curveball Rafid Alwan. Motto is: who seeks finds.