Key WMD Iraqi informant was 'crazy,' U.S. was told before war

[NNN0LHI]

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Prewar claims by the United States that Iraq was producing biological weapons were based almost entirely on accounts from a defector who was described as "crazy" by his intelligence handlers and a "congenital liar" by his friends.

The defector code-named "Curveball" spoke with alarming specificity about Iraq's alleged biological weapons programs and fleet of mobile labs. But postwar investigations found that he wasn't even in Iraq at times when he claimed to have taken part in illicit weapons work.

Despite persistent doubts about his credibility, Curveball's claims were included in the Bush administration's case for war without so much as a caveat. And when CIA analysts argued after the invasion that the agency needed to admit that it had been duped, they were forced out of their jobs.

The disclosures about Curveball and the extensive role he played in corrupting U.S. intelligence estimates were included in the report released Thursday by a commission established by President Bush to evaluate U.S. intelligence on weapons of mass destruction.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5324034.html

[daleo]

1. So the cause of the war was a crazy man.

Well we always knew that. But there are so many to pick from...where to start? Bush, Cheney, Blair, Rummy, Wolfy, Bolton, Perle, Powell,...and let's not forget the crazy women, such as Rice and Wolfy's girlfriend.

But Curveball is pretty far down the list, in reality.

[tanyev]

7. Yep. Curveball seemed pretty lucid, in comparison.

[roguevalley]

2. yet the cia takes the fall. they need to turn on bush like the praetorian

guard on caligula

[dbt]

3. Kick for the morning crew!

[Cooley Hurd]

4. ...and not ONE FUCKING WORD about Feith and OSP????

I didn't expect it from Silberman, of course, but Chuck fucking Robb???? What a tool...:mad::grr::mad:

[NNN0LHI]

10. Oh, no. That brings it right back to Boosh and Cheney n/t

[LiberallyInclined]

5. it sounds like he'd fit right in in this administration...

"Prewar claims by the United States that Iraq was producing biological weapons were based almost entirely on accounts from a defector who was described as "crazy" by his intelligence handlers and a "congenital liar" by his friends.

[Gin]

6. More proof that ...The "INMATES are running the ASYLUM!"

g

[zanne]

8. Hundreds of thousands of people marched in the streets

Hundreds of thousands of people kept telling them there were no WMD's. A complete disregard of the wishes of most of the people in this country caused us to preemptively attack a country that was not a danger to us. Whatever this administration has done since March 03', and whatever it does in the future, will not equal the international crime of invading Iraq.

[artemisia1]

21. I'd like to think so...

I'd like to think so but they have four more years left with which to astonish the world.

[Mechatanketra]

62. Wishful thinking, I (sadly) believe

A complete disregard of the wishes of most of the people in this country caused us to preemptively attack a country that was not a danger to us.

A moment's thought would suggest: if "most of the country" really was decidedly against war, why'd the last election feature pro-war candidates from both parties?

I think it's fair to say the war was as much the fault of a complete disregard from most of the country towards the President's march to war. You had people right here on DU (and not just freeper disruptors, but 1000 club stalwarts) before the invasion swearing up and down that we didn't dare oppose the war because there were WMDs, and swearing up and down after the invasion that "nobody knew for sure" that Iraq wasn't a threat. (Proving that revisionist history also is not restricted to the WH.)

The hundreds of thousands who spoke up were drowned out by the roaring silence of the millions who just didn't give a damn. As I said once before here: Arguments against war fell on deaf ears largely because "It would be unspeakably wrong" wasn't sufficiently compelling. And they continue to, to this day ...

[NNN0LHI]

9. So we had one crazy man go to war on the word of another crazy man?

Real nice.

Don

[LeftistGorilla]

11. you're....

only as good as your sources....

[Roland99]

12. "CIA never had access to Curveball"..."Instead,..the [DIA]"

So, the CIA gets the blame for the pre-war intelligence fuck-up but they never had access to the nutcase that was the basis for most of the intelligence?


WTF??


I'm sure Porter Goss and Negroponte will straighten things out toute suite!


And we all know who was running the DIA, right? Yep...the new head of the World Bank. Mr. PNAC neoCON.

[NNN0LHI]

13. Yea. They will straighten this all out...NOT! n/t

[denverbill]

14. And Dan Rather lost his job for what?

One time in his career Dan Rather used marginal documents on a story and was forced out of his job.

Time after time after time, the White House has used dubious intelligence and outright lies to support it's policies of war and deficit spending, and they pay NO price whatsoever.

[reprobate]

38. A case of the media eating it's own.

The american main stream media is guilty of treason IMHO.

[Chico Man]

15. Maybe curveball can give me some retirement investment advice?

If it turns out to be crap, I don't lose any money, right?

[thebigidea]

16. has this clown's id ever been established? was it "dr" hamza?

I notice "Saddam's Bombmaker" or whatever his self-given title was is noticeably absent from the FNC lineup these days.

[The_Casual_Observer]

17. Who else can the rw depend on? They are all glorified guckerts

and curveballs in the end anyway.

[struggle4progress]

18. President was 'crazy,' U.S. was told before election. Oh, well ... eom

[killbotfactory]

19. They didn't care who told them or how credible they were

They just wanted to baffle the nation with enough bullshit to start their fucking war.

[Merlin]

20. My son's great rant on this INCREDIBLE FUCKING FARCE!

This is awesome. A work of wonder. I feel cleansed having read it. It has washed the cycnicism away and awakened me to the understanding that this is all just glorious farce. Once you tilt the prism that way, the truth is no longer spirit-crushing. You can see it as a divine gift, cosmic humor, something to be grateful for the chance to enjoy. I mean, you could put Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, and Joseph Heller together in a room for a decade and you wouldn't get material half this good. I'm thinking I'll option this report. I'll save money on production by hiring one actor to play Curveball, and the German intelligence officer who says "You don't want to see him because he's crazy," and the deputy CIA director who says "Oh, my! I hope that's not true," and, of course, the oblivious Jesus-freak cowboy president who goes to war anyhoo. This will require revivifying Peter Sellers, but since we live in a Culture of Life, that ought not to be a problem. I'm not sure who should direct, but I at least want the Terrys (Gilliam and Jones) to handle the scene where the intelligence officers (and their trusty servant Patsy) go roaming around Iraq after the war (in full armor, no doubt), asking the locals if they've ever heard of Curveball. I can just hear those coconut halves clopping. ("And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana shaped.")

[agincourt]

22. The entire endgame here,

is to discredit the CIA enough, so that it is restructured to just be an arm of the GOP, like the KGB was of the Communist party. We had a UN that was ready to send inspectors and blue helmet troops into Iraq to look for WMD. Even if we believe the pecker-up-a-bulls- ass lie that shrub was mislead by the CIA, he still had no case for war.

[Moderator]

23. kick to combine

[Up2Late]

US relied on 'drunken liar' to justify war (The Observer)

(why does this not surprise me?)

US relied on 'drunken liar' to justify war

'Crazy' Iraqi spy was full of misinformation, says report

Edward Helmore in New York
Sunday April 3, 2005
The Observer

An alcoholic cousin of an aide to Ahmed Chalabi has emerged as the key source in the US rationale for going to war in Iraq. According to a US presidential commission looking into pre-war intelligence failures, the basis for pivotal intelligence on Iraq's alleged biological weapons programmes and fleet of mobile labs was a spy described as 'crazy' by his intelligence handlers and a 'congenital liar' by his friends.

The defector, given the code-name Curveball by the CIA, has emerged as the central figure in the corruption of US intelligence estimates on Iraq. Despite considerable doubts over Curveball's credibility, his claims were included in the administration's case for war without caveat. According to the report, the failure of US spy agencies to scrutinise his claims are the 'primary reason' that they 'fundamentally misjudged the status of Iraq's programs'. The catalogue of failures and the gullibility of US intelligence make for darkly comic reading, even by the standards of failure detailed in previous investigations. Of all the disproven pre-war weapons claims, from aluminium centrifuge tubes to yellow cake uranium from Niger, none points to greater levels of incompetence than those found within the misadventures of Curveball.

The Americans never had direct access to Curveball - he was controlled by the German intelligence services who passed his reports on to the Defence Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's spy agency. Between January 2000 and September 2001, Curveball offered 100 reports, among them the claims of mobile biological weapons labs that were central in the US evidence of an illicit weapons programme, but subsequently turned out to be trucks equipped with machinery to make helium for weather balloons.

(more at link above)

[TrueAmerican]

24. Funny

I thought they were talking about Dubya.

[Catt03]

25. Me too! LOL

[Sannum]

27. I did as well!!

LOL!:7

[mattclearing]

30. I think it was an intentional double entendre for the Observer headline.

;)

[illflem]

32. *****

[4dsc]

28. You are correct

AWOlbush is an alcoholic and a LIAR!!

[madaboutharry]

26. I simply can not take this in.

It is too overwhelming to believe that such a thing could have happened to our country. I lay the blame for this at the feet of the Fourth Estate which had a responsibility to find the truth.

[mattclearing]

29. Now they're just making shit up.

Whatever man. They went because they wanted to. Give me a break.

[havocmom]

36. BINGO! "They went because they wanted to." Yeppers

They kept talking to people until they found one who would tell them what they wanted to hear. Now he is to be the fall guy while their corporate sponsors cash the checks? What a racket.

Mr. & Mrs. America, your children's blood and the blood of thes of thousands of innocent Iraqis is squandered for greed by evil, lying drunkards. You gonna keep taking this shit?

[DoYouEverWonder]

31. So a drunken liar

is blaming a drunken liar for the reason why he lied about the reasons for going to war. Priceless.

[Up2Late]

34. It kind of reminds me of the "I,Mudd" episode from the 1960's

Where to destroy the main Robot (who worshiped Mudd) was told by Mudd that "every thing I say is a Lie. I'm Lying":crazy:

[Gold Metal Flake]

33. How is this Clinton's fault?

Cuz I still hear this from the rightards.

[LynnTheDem]

35. February 2003; CIA agents warned Tenet that "curveball" was useless.

Doubts, Dissent Stripped from Public Version of Iraq Assessment

The public version of the U.S. intelligence community's key prewar assessment of Iraq's illicit arms programs was stripped of dissenting opinions, warnings of insufficient information and doubts about deposed dictator Saddam Hussein's intentions, a review of the document and its once-classified version shows.

As a result, the public was given a far more definitive assessment of Iraq's plans and capabilities than President Bush and other U.S. decision-makers received from their intelligence agencies.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0210-02.htm

The CIA NEVER ONCE said "there is no doubt"...BUSH DID. bush LIED.

CIA to Bush: 'No clear Evidence of WMD'
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/120103A.shtml

Why the CIA thinks Bush is wrong
The president says the US has to act now against Iraq. The trouble is, his own security services don't agree.

http://www.sundayherald.com/28384

CIA in blow to Bush attack plans

The letter also comes at a time when the CIA is competing with the more hawkish Pentagon, which is also supplying the White House with intelligence on the Iraqi threat.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,808970,00.html


White House 'exaggerating Iraqi threat'

Bush's televised address attacked by US intelligence

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,807286,00.html

Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39500-2003Aug9?language=printer

CIA's October 2002 NIE:

"We lack specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD programs."

bush:

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

"We know for a fact that there are weapons there."

"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more."

"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly"

"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction."

"We know where they are."

CIA's October 2002 NIE:

-Nuclear program
"The activities we have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons."

bush:

"Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program."

bush, 2000 GOP Platform:

"Nor should the intelligence community be made the scapegoat for political misjudgments."

[Up2Late]

37. Kick to revive this Dead Thread

:kick:

[NYC]

39. Thanks for reviving it.

:hi:

[kskiska]

40. US relied on 'drunken liar' to justify war

'Crazy' Iraqi spy was full of misinformation, says report

An alcoholic cousin of an aide to Ahmed Chalabi has emerged as the key source in the US rationale for going to war in Iraq.

According to a US presidential commission looking into pre-war intelligence failures, the basis for pivotal intelligence on Iraq's alleged biological weapons programmes and fleet of mobile labs was a spy described as 'crazy' by his intelligence handlers and a 'congenital liar' by his friends.

The defector, given the code-name Curveball by the CIA, has emerged as the central figure in the corruption of US intelligence estimates on Iraq. Despite considerable doubts over Curveball's credibility, his claims were included in the administration's case for war without caveat.

According to the report, the failure of US spy agencies to scrutinise his claims are the 'primary reason' that they 'fundamentally misjudged the status of Iraq's programs'. The catalogue of failures and the gullibility of US intelligence make for darkly comic reading, even by the standards of failure detailed in previous investigations. Of all the disproven pre-war weapons claims, from aluminium centrifuge tubes to yellow cake uranium from Niger, none points to greater levels of incompetence than those found within the misadventures of Curveball.

more…
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1451138,00.html

[DELUSIONAL]

41. and I thought the drunken liar was bushie

[obxhead]

51. I thought

he was a coke head/pot head.

[Jon_da_brockman]

42. I thought everyone knew that?

... oh, they are refering to curveball, never mind. I thought they were referign to another drunken liar we know of.

[rodeodance]

55. most of us did. What a whitewashy Report!!

[bobthedrummer]

43. A drunken liar? It's The War President then!

:mad:

[gratuitous]

44. This is apparently why intelligence has to be top secret

Because if an ordinary citizen saw this kind of nonsense, they'd laugh their butts off that we were even thinking of going to war on this basis.

But it was apparently good enough for St. Colin Powell to go to the UN and tell everyone what terrific "facts" the invasion was being launched because of.

Anyone remember that spurious bit of crap in the lead-up to this incredibly illegal invasion that between contradictory statements from the Bush administration and from Saddam Hussein, good Americans should believe the Bush administration? I don't recall seeing that too much anymore.

[The_Casual_Observer]

45. bush didn't serve us very well, if he didn't ask for a careful

vetting of this kind of explosive and important information. This assumes that he was really interested in the facts, not simply a cheap justification for going ahead with the invasion.

[anarchy1999]

59. The Bush family, bushitas, have never in their family history meant

to serve "us" well. Only for themselves.

[daleo]

46. Since it was all a mistake, the U.S. can just leave now.

Sorry about that folks, you know the funniest thing happened...

[rocktivity]

47. I guess it takes a drunken liar to know one.

:headbang:
rocknation

[grytpype]

48. WHEN WILL BUSH BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THIS?

Sending America to war on the basis of a drunken liar... when is he going to be run out of the country

[K8-EEE]

50. Remember Him Saying "We Have Good Intellegence!"

Yeah....right....

I also remember him saying "I'll take responsibility..."

THAT will be the day, when Mr. spoiled frat boy takes responsibility for ANYTHING, or when the fucking GOP Moonies who voted for him expect him to...

[K8-EEE]

49. Drunken Liars Relied On Drunken Liars

Sounds about right to me...

[MrModerate]

52. This guy's FRIENDS call him a congenital liar?

So that explains why the Schimpanski-apparat gave him so much credibility -- he fit right in.

[libodem]

53. Oh, Gawd, Now they tell us!

What WILL they TELL us next?

[bluedeminredstate]

54. Wasn't Curveball kicking around

while the INC (backed by their neocon pals) tried to get some traction with Clinton? And wasn't he found out to be a totally unreliable, useless source of intel? I thought the CIA tossed him out years ago and considered him a complete liar. I'm almost certain that Curveball played this same shit before the Bushies came to town and the intelligence community thought of him as poison. If that's true, how and why was he "rehabilitated" so quickly? I think everyone knows that answer.
There aren't enough good guys to counteract the toadys and get the truth out. So much of the media was and continues to be complicit in the lying to rationalize Bush's war.

[rodeodance]

56. maybe curveball became a born again christian??

[readmylips]

57. I find this as funny as bush appointing....

Karen Huge to help get the good name of the United States back. What a sad case of craziness this administration lives in.

[anarchy1999]

58. Can we please bring in Sibel Edmonds now?

JSFC! And that is an expletive, damn! What is it going to take, I just keep asking the same damned question.

HOW MUCH MORE?

[Mist]

60. This seems so perfect for the rabbit-hole world of the * admin. n/t

[90-percent]

61. Curveball

Confirm or deny:

Curveball is Ahmed Chalibi's brother, besides!

- 85%

[jazzjunkysue]

63. I'm not paying my taxes: Curveball says I don't have to: Curveball Defense

Speeding ticket? Use the Curveball Defense
Palimony late? Curveball Defense
Invade wrong country? Curveball Defense

[NNN0LHI]

64. This is the story the MSM and Boosh doesn't want to be reported on n/t

[NNN0LHI]

65. Get back up there

:kick: