Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Iraqi defectors who stepped forward with stories about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were coached by senior figures in Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, according to a former INC field leader. To back up his claim, Muhammad al-Zubaidi has provided his handwritten diaries from 2001 and 2002, and his existing reports on the statements originally made by the defectors. "According to the documents," writes Jim Dwyer, "the defectors, while speaking with precision about aspects of Iraqi military facilities like its stock of missiles, did not initially make some of the most provocative claims about weapons production or that an Iraqi official had met with Mr. bin Laden." According to Zubaidi, "They intentionally exaggerated all the information so they
would drag the United States into war. ... I don't want to criticize U.S. agencies, but it's strange that the U.S. with all its powerful agencies, the C.I.A., could not manage to know the truth from the lies in these people."
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