US source ‘Curveball’ invented Iraq stories

THE Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, whose false tales of biological weapons labs bolstered the US case for war, wasn’t the prominent chemical engineer he claimed to be and invented stories to help his case for asylum in Germany, a new report says.

Curveball is Rafid Ahmed Alwan, who studied chemical engineering but made poor grades and never managed a biological weapons facility, according to CBS’s 60 Minutes, which will tomorrow broadcast a report describing how Alwan became an intelligence source.

Curveball was discredited by US investigations and became an embarrassment to US spy agencies.