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CIA Analysts Concerned About Faulty Iraq WMD Source Were “Forced to Leave,” Report Says
CIA analysts who expressed concern about the agency’s top source for information about prewar Iraq’s alleged biological weapons programs were “forced to leave” the unit that led analysis of the source’s claims, the presidential Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 28). Allegations that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was building mobile biological weapons laboratories were based almost solely on information provided by an Iraqi defector identified as “Curveball,” according to the New York Times. CIA officials in fall 2002 had never met the defector, who had been providing information through German intelligence officials. With the Bush administration weighing the possibility of an invasion of Iraq, a senior CIA official asked Germany to grant direct access to Curveball. The official was told Curveball had suffered a nervous breakdown, according to the commission report. “You don’t want to see him because he’s crazy,” the official recalled being told. There were serious concerns that Curveball might be a “fabricator,” the official learned. Several senior CIA officials then quietly attempted to stop the United States from using information from Curveball, eventually taking their concerns to then-Deputy Director John McLaughlin and then-Director George Tenet. The concerns were not relayed to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who used information supplied by Curveball about Iraq’s alleged mobile biological weapons laboratories in his presentation outlining the U.S. case for war at the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003. The night before Powell’s speech, Tenet called the division chief responsible for Iraq intelligence at his home, at which time the official said he told Tenet the Curveball information “has problems,” the Times reported. Tenet said, “Yeah, yeah,” and then mentioned that he was exhausted, the report states. Tenet later told the commission said the division chief had not given him such a warning (David Barstow, New York Times, April 1).
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