Global Security Newswire

The U.S. case for Iraq’s development of mobile biological weapons facilities was based largely on information from an Iraqi defector who has since been called an “out-and-out fabricator,” the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday (see GSN, March 24).

The story of the man code-named “Curveball” began after U.N. inspectors in the early 1990s sought help from Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, to confirm suspicions that Iraq had developed mobile biological weapons facilities, the Times reported (see GSN, March 16). Later, an Iraqi chemical engineer in a German refugee camp came forward and claimed that he had been hired out of Baghdad University to design and build such vehicles for the Iraqi military, the Times reported. 

The United States received the man’s information through German intelligence and was not given access to the defector, according to the Times. While Bush administration officials made repeated warnings about the vehicles, based mainly on the defector’s information, the CIA later learned that the man was the brother of a top aide to Chalabi and suspected that he might have been instructed to provide inaccurate information, the Times reported. No mobile biological facilities have been found to date in Iraq.

Labeling Curveball as an “out-and-out fabricator,” former U.S. chief weapons inspector in Iraq David Kay said the case was one of the most damaging to the U.S. intelligence community’s record regarding prewar Iraq.

“This is the one that’s damning,” Kay said. “This is the one that has the potential for causing the largest havoc in the sense that it really looks like a lack of due diligence and care in going forward,” he said.

Former CIA Deputy Director Richards Kerr, who is leading an internal CIA review into prewar Iraqi intelligence, defended the agency’s handling of Curveball, saying the information he provided was consistent with intelligence on Iraq’s efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

“It was detailed and specific and made a lot of sense,” Kerr said, adding that the CIA had suspected that Iraq was hiding WMD programs in civilian facilities. “You get reporting on mobile production facilities … and you say it makes some sense,” Kerr said.

He also defended the CIA’s decision to rely on an anonymous, inaccessible source. While German intelligence rejected U.S. requests for access, it did provide its file on the defector to U.S. officials and had him answer questions posed by U.S. intelligence, Kerr said.   

“Intelligence is often based on information where you can’t go back and talk to the source or verify it,” Kerr said. “So you turn to the basic questions. ‘Does it make sense?  Is it logical? Does it appear he could have been at the right place at the right time to know these things?’” he added (Drogin/Miller, Los Angeles Times, March 28).