How the Bush Administration Fell Under the Spell of 'Curveball'

[Thom Little]

By Bob Drogin and John Goetz
Los Angeles Times
Sunday, Nov. 20, 2005


The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction say that the Bush administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims during the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Five senior officials from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, said in interviews with The Times that they warned U.S. intelligence authorities that the source, an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so.

According to the Germans, President Bush mischaracterized Curveball's information when he warned before the war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons. Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also misstated Curveball's accounts in his prewar presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, the Germans said.

Curveball's German handlers for the last six years said his information was often vague, mostly secondhand and impossible to confirm.

"This was not substantial evidence," said a senior German intelligence official. "We made clear we could not verify the things he said."


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-curveball20nov20,1,4140621.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

[Erika]

1. W's lies continue

Surprise, surprise.

[MnFats]

2. they should be hammered with this.

clip, copy and send to every member of congress, your governor (head of your national guard) and anybody else in power.

hammer them. just hammer them with this.

[No Exit]

3. Everyone should click this link. This article is just frikkin unbelievable

I started reading it, saw that it was long, planned to just read part, but couldn't stop reading, all the way to the end. The Curveball story is amazing, unbelievable, and will surely one day make its way into "Ripley's Believe It Or Not".

[mtnester]

4. For some reason, every time I see "Curveball", I think about

this administration and immediately move to thinking their whole time in office is more like Spaceballs.

May the Schwartz be with you.