Source "Curveball" blamed in U.S. intel failure

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N31250290.htm

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - In building its case for the Iraq war, the Bush administration relied on bogus intelligence from a mysterious Iraqi chemical engineer code-named "Curveball," whose dramatic tips about mobile germ labs made their way to top policymakers with little vetting.

In its final report issued on Thursday, the presidential commission that investigated intelligence failures in Iraq cast Curveball as the "pivotal" source behind the intelligence community's escalating warnings about Iraq's biological weapons programs before the invasion.

Assertions that Iraq was cooking up biological agents in mobile labs to elude international inspectors and Western intelligence services -- based almost exclusively on Curveball's information -- became what the report called one of the "most important and alarming" assessments in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate cited by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in justifying the war.

Despite Curveball's mysterious background and internal doubts about his reliability, his assertions appeared in more than 100 government reports and shaped then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 2003 address to the United Nations detailing Iraq's weapons programs.

[CottonBear]

1. It's all the fault of the Iraqis.

WTF? Code-name Curveball? Give me a fucking break.

Arghhhhh! :banghead:

[EVDebs]

5. You mean Iranians ! Curveball was a Chalabi/Iranian source

whose 'information' the Office of Special Plans was stovepiping to the White House, bypassing normal reviews and criticism.

[CottonBear]

8. Really? This whole story is so convoluted

and confusing.

[HereSince1628]

2. The problem was a willful suspension of disbelief

The administration created a climate that not only accepted but expected fiction.

Intelligence agencies really can never afford to do that.

Once anything became possible, everything was a real threat.

Intelligence agencies will treat what has happened as a textbook example of how NOT to do intelligence.

[XemaSab]

3. Seriously, WTF?

I've got a tip for the government.

Bush is a complete asshat: Investigate.

[EVDebs]

4. Patrick Lang, says this Iranian spy thru Chalabi was "good work"

Lang of DIA (usually seen on PBS Newshour) called the Chalabi/Iranian spy operation "good work" -- see

""Patrick Lang, former director of the DIA's Middle East branch, said he had been told by colleagues that Chalabi's U.S.-funded program to provide information about weapons of mass destruction and insurgents was effectively an Iranian intelligence operation. "They (the Iranians) knew exactly what we were up to," he said.
He described it as "one of the most sophisticated and successful intelligence operations in history." "I'm a spook. I appreciate good work. This was good work," he said.""

Furthermore...

""An intelligence official said (Aras) Habib also was the INC official who handled most of the Iraqi defectors, including one code-named "Curveball," who provided much of the fabricated, exaggerated and unconfirmed information about Iraqi weapons programs and links to terrorism that President Bush used in making his case for invading Iraq.""

Iran used Chalabi to dupe U.S., report says
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001935950_iranchalabi22.html

This all tells us that Iranian intelligence helped provide Bush with the phony excuses in order to go into Iraq. Bush should 'thank' the Iranians then ? Or better yet, the OIG report or whoever is 'looking into' the failure of US intelligence should explicitly detail the duping of our intelligence agencies AND SEE THAT IT DOESN'T HAPPEN AGAIN.

[Village Idiot]

6. Wasn't this guy...

some aide to Chalabi in the '90s? Didn't they find this out later?

[UpInArms]

7. Secretive Pentagon office target of FBI probe, sources say

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/politics/9560493.htm

Posted on Thu, Sep. 02, 2004

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - An unorthodox Pentagon outfit responsible for much of the Bush administration's discredited intelligence on Iraq is the target of a broad FBI national security probe, sources told the New York Daily News Wednesday.

The secretive Office of Special Plans and a related project are being investigated over how they obtained top-secret intelligence and whom they shared it with, according to four federal sources.

"It involves the improper transfer of information," said one source briefed on the case. "A lot more is going to come out."

<snip>

Feith's team has been blamed by Democratic lawmakers and others for sexing up uncorroborated intelligence on Iraq's arsenal from Iraqi dissident Ahmed Chalabi and other sources, including a bogus informant code-named "Curveball."

...more...

[Lone Pawn]

9. LOL! Great codename. Dictionary.com definition of Curveball:

Idiom:
"pitch/throw (someone) a curve ball" _ Slang

1. To mislead; deceive.
2. To cause to be surprised, especially unpleasantly so.

[kittykitty]

10. I think they just made him up so they would have someone to blame it on

What better than a fictious person to blame? Who would ever know what really happend/

[Quakerfriend]

11. Yup, sounds similar to some of those used by Rove

and Co. in the past. Clear Skies, Health Forests etc similar eh?

[EVDebs]

12. War Powers Act of 1973 and perjury

War Powers Act conditions and circumstances requiring use of force can't be 'figments of the President's imagination'. Lying to Congress in order to start a war as with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution implies factual conditions and circumstances, not something that Bob Woodward could come along and claim was a 'slam dunk'.

[VegasWolf]

13. Amazing. It's everyones fault but bush. What a WHITE WASH report.

No wonder bush agrees with it.