The Iraqi defector who helped convince the American intelligence community and press that Iraq was making weapons of mass destruction has admitted that his testimony was false. Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, also known ever-more-appropriately as Curveball by German and American intelligence, fabricated evidence that was famously used as justification for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Iraqi bomb cache - no WMDs

In an interview with The Guardian, he claimed he used the misinformation in order to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime. He said he was happy that the regime was ended by the U.S. “I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy," he said.

A German politician told The Guardian that al-Janabi could face jail time for warmongering.

The admission came as a no surprise to some who have long believed that the evidence, presented to the U.N. by then Secretary of State Colin Powell in the run-up to the invasion, was false.

Paul Waldman, a contributor to the American Prospect magazine, wrote in a blog post that this is just further evidence that reporters covering the story were “so blinded by how awesome Powell was”:

It may boggle the mind that so much of the case for war was based on the testimony of one absurdly unreliable guy. But that was what passed for "intelligence" during the Bush years.

Reach us here.