In 2003 the Iraq War began after a carefully orchestrated disinformation campaign about Saddam Hussein's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
During a dinner at the home of the then US vice president, 11 months before the invasion of Iraq, the conversation had focused on the need to topple the Sunni dictatorship of Saddam and replace it with a democratic government. If this were achieved, developments would be triggered in the same direction in Syria, which is hostile to Israel.
On March 26, 1976, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and American Jimmy Carter signed the first peace treaty between an Arab state and Israel. On October 26, 1994, it was King Hussein of Jordan's turn to sign a peace treaty with Israel, ending a 46-year state of war.
At that dinner, by Vice President Dean Cheney, Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were not even mentioned. Those present simply agreed that the invasion would trigger democratic developments in Iraq to close the circle of Arab peace around Israel. In this way Israel would ensure peace for years to come.
These noble motives had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. The whole scene about Saddam's nuclear weapons was set up based on the testimony of an Iraqi autopilot who, after adventures, made it to Germany. The one in question was known by the code name "Curveball".
High-ranking CIA officials went to Germany to interrogate him, and the Bush administration literally swallowed what he said. British Prime Minister Tony Blair went to Washington and attended a Congressional hearing in which it was stated that Western civilization was in danger from Saddam and therefore military action should be taken against him. Thus the decision was made to invade Iraq to destroy Saddam's nuclear arsenal.
The only problem with the save-the-world scenario? But that Saddam didn't have nuclear weapons. "Curveball" later admitted that he made up the whole story. Nevertheless, top US officials, such as Collins Powell, ministers, but also the head of the CIA, told the UN Security Council that the US had evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's arsenal, which posed a threat to the West culture. All these were of course lies.
The cost of this lie, which some people wanted to believe, exceeded 1.9 trillion. dollars, while costing the lives of 4,486 Americans. Another 32,222 Americans were injured. On the Iraqi side, the dead reached 601,027 and 3 million people left their homes.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, the Bush administration made 935 false statements to American citizens and the international community about Iraq between 2001 and 2003, when the invasion took place. Despite this, public opinion in the allied Arab countries does not seem to be convinced and 96% and 68% in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, respectively, rejected the American objections.
Perhaps the most embarrassing failure of US intelligence concerns the case of Ahmed Chalabi, who became the official darling of various US neo-conservative think tanks in Washington, which put serious pressure on the government to respond with weapons to the "nuclear threat". of Saddam Hussein.
Chalabi was the president of a bank in Jordan, which he led to bankruptcy. He was brilliant. He studied mathematics in the USA and then founded the Petra Bank in Jordan. The Central Bank of Jordan, in 1989, instructed all the country's banks to place 35% of their reserves in the Chalebi Stone Bank.
Chalambi, however, after the bankruptcy, left Jordan, safely, in one of the royal limousines, which took him to Damascus and from there to London. From there he began to finance a disinformation campaign against Saddam, the cost of which exceeded 200 million dollars, money which, apparently, came from his bankrupt bank.
This hero of the American neoconservative think tanks has since appeared, many times on American television, lying against Saddam and his supposed nuclear arsenal, in order to terrify and convince the American public of the necessity of the invasion.
In 2003, the US Pentagon sent him to Iraq, along with the first wave of US forces. He had already joined the payroll of the American services and was destined to become the first president of "liberated" Iraq. Chalambi made several visits to Tehran, discussing the future of the region with the leadership there.
Until May 2005, he held the position of vice president of the Iraqi government. However, his contacts with Iran led to his relegation from the role of the favorite child of the American neoconservatives.
Chalabi, however, all this time had supplied the Americans with hundreds of forged documents, through which the Saddam regime was linked to al-Qaeda. The French secret services, however, had long since come to the conclusion that Chalabi was an Iranian agent, whose mission was to lead the USA into a geopolitical trap.