Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

German Intelligence Was 'Dishonest, Unprofessional and Irresponsible'
Der Spiegel ^

Posted on 03/22/2008 10:48:08 AM PDT by Kaslin

SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH IRAQ WMD SLEUTH DAVID KAY

David Kay was charged by the Bush administration with finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the invasion. Instead of finding weapons, though, he found what he told SPIEGEL was 'the biggest intelligence fiasco of my lifetime.'

SPIEGEL: As head of the Iraq Survey Group, you led the effort to follow up on the claims made by 'Curveball,' the asylum seeker from Iraq who told German intelligence that Saddam Hussein was building mobile biological weapons laboratories. Do you remember the first time you began to doubt his story?

Kay: The real shock was that the CIA had never spoken to him directly. To this day, I still don’t understand. How can you hang the most dramatic part of a case for war on an individual no American agent has ever directly debriefed? I realized right away, we needed to follow up in Baghdad on whatever leads we had concerning 'Curveball.'

SPIEGEL: Were you briefed by the BND, the German foreign intelligence agency, before you went to Iraq?

Kay: No way. This is part of how toxic and how horrible the relationship was between the BND and the CIA. The Germans never gave us 'Curveball’s' real name which once lead to minor disaster in Germany.

SPIEGEL: What happened?

Kay: Members of the CIA based in Munich thought they had his name and went out and found someone in Germany with a very similar name. They found him -- a young Iraqi -- and knocked on his door without approval by the German authorities. But it was the wrong guy, and he ended up calling the police on the intruders.

(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Germany; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: cia; curveball; davidkay; iraq; prewarintelligence; saddam; wmd
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

1 posted on 03/22/2008 10:48:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Tut; jveritas

Ping


2 posted on 03/22/2008 10:48:47 AM PDT by Kaslin (Peace is the aftermath of victory)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

BUMP FOR LATER


3 posted on 03/22/2008 11:06:31 AM PDT by Cacique (quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ( Islamia Delenda Est ))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Good read...


4 posted on 03/22/2008 11:08:33 AM PDT by johnny7
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

It’s OK because the brilliant Tyler Dumbheller knew all along that ‘Curveball’ was a fabricator and warned his CIA superiors numerous times not to trust that info. /s

Most interesting that it was under Schroeder’s anti-American govt. that ‘Curveball’ was embraced, since one would think they had every reason to try to dissuade the USA from proceeding to war — suggests that something different was going on than foolish left-wing politics, such as the stifling bureaucratic culture of letting the wrong people within the BND have complete control over this guy when he was never properly vetted or cross-examined.....


5 posted on 03/22/2008 11:25:33 AM PDT by Enchante (Obama: You think Hillary's Ruthless? Hell, I'll Run Over My Own Grandmother to Get Elected!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Grampa Dave; BIGLOOK

Not pinging this to the list just yet.


6 posted on 03/22/2008 11:28:17 AM PDT by ASA Vet (Do we want Huma answering the White House phone at 3:00 AM?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

The anti American and anti Bush left and drive by media and hypocrat party (not to mention the Val Plames & hubby etc. etc. etc.) will do all in their power to smear Bush and cover up the truth. There’s just too many of them now.

Unfortunately, we’ll be dead and gone IF the truth is ever revealed.


7 posted on 03/22/2008 11:35:35 AM PDT by tpanther (The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing-----Edmund Burke)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
What is David Kay's degree of reliability??

Could the attributes he attaches to German intelligence be his, as well?

8 posted on 03/22/2008 11:36:57 AM PDT by elpadre
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Enchante

The history of the CIA is one of missing every major event...from incorrectly reading the intel given prior to the 1968 Tet Offensive to missing India’s first nuke test in the 60’s to missing India and Pakistan’s nuke tests in 1998 to missing the fall of the Berlin Wall to missing the collapse of the CCCP to missing Castro’s intentions in Cuba to missing 9/11/2001.

Gee, no WMD’s in Iraq?! But, but, the CIA said that WMD’s in Iraq were “a slam dunk.”

In the meantime, Schroeder’s anti-American operations dovetailed with Chirac’s anti-American ops which included using an Italian double-agent to plant forged Nigerian WMD documents inside the CIA in an effort to discredit the Bush Administration.

And to this day there are large numbers of powerful CIA agents who are leaking intel and carrying out ops to bring down conservative U.S. Presidents.

They are active traitors...in our midst.


9 posted on 03/22/2008 11:45:55 AM PDT by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Southack

I think it reflects their approach to recruiting. Thought?


10 posted on 03/22/2008 11:59:27 AM PDT by enough_idiocy (Holding my nose in 2008. I disagree with McCain on lots of issue, but with the Democrats on more.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: enough_idiocy

I think that it reflects an active cultivation of pro-communist ideology...be it from within or as part of a deliberate effort of the old KGB.


11 posted on 03/22/2008 12:16:38 PM PDT by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Still beating a dead horse...


12 posted on 03/22/2008 12:47:00 PM PDT by bill1952 (I will vote for McCain if he resigns his Senate seat before this election.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ASA Vet; Grampa Dave
I recall US forces discovering mobile bioweapons trailers in the desert early on in the conflict. And then there was the unsolved anthrax mailings in Washington, DC and a poisoning in NYC shortly after 9/11. Of course these might just be coincidences.....or something else?
13 posted on 03/22/2008 1:20:32 PM PDT by BIGLOOK (Keelhaul politicians. The Ship of State needs a good scrubbing!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: BIGLOOK
I recall US forces discovering mobile bioweapons trailers in the desert early on in the conflict.

After careful examination by experts, they turned out not to be bioweapons trailers.

14 posted on 03/22/2008 1:35:18 PM PDT by Strategerist
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
David Kay has stated that he found Saddam even MORE DANGEROUS than we thought. Even though he didn't have a stockpile he was actively working towards WMD right up to the war. See wikepedia for links to many of his comments. Why the administration and people who supported the war have not emphasized this has been a mystery and disappointment. It has done great harm by letting the American people believe that Saddam was not really a threat.
15 posted on 03/22/2008 1:47:29 PM PDT by ketchikan (Kay has stated that Saddam was EVEN MORE DANGEROUS than we thought)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Strategerist
Of course. Just mobile breweries.
16 posted on 03/22/2008 2:08:17 PM PDT by BIGLOOK (Keelhaul politicians. The Ship of State needs a good scrubbing!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: ketchikan

” Why the administration and people who supported the war have not emphasized this has been a mystery and disappointment.”

Read and digest the references at this address: http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/archive.html and see what you think.

The 90% democrat media has a rabid anti-Bush agenda and will not cover the facts if they are favorable to our president. However, if Clinton, Gore or any other democrat would have been president at 9/11, we would be cowering in our basements wondering where the next terrorist attack would be.


17 posted on 03/22/2008 6:59:09 PM PDT by Western Phil
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: johnny7

If you read the entire interview...there are serious disconnects within the German CIA and obviously one hand doing things that the other hand is unaware of.

The comment of having US personnel there in Germany....but no ready access to “Curveball”....is the biggest indicator of things going wrong.

When you add up the value of what the Bush administration put on the “Curveball” reports....and then you subtract them...the argument of going into Iraq starts to really sink. Looking back now...this time line that the Pentagon developed.....really screwed up any real intelligence gathering or thought process. You end up watching folks make unwise decisions based on reports of no value. Our entire state of affairs today....exists because of bogus “Curveball” reports.


18 posted on 03/23/2008 12:53:39 AM PDT by pepsionice
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: pepsionice

Happy Easter. But you don´t buy that, do you? There was no intention at all to put these “informations” to a probe. I mean, the US administration screwed the entire arguments for the Iraq war so terribly up, one cannot blame it on one dis-informant. And even worse, how can one blame German intel for sharing informations, that even the German government labeled as “not trustworthy”? I really expected the CIA to be better than that. Heck, just imagine for a second how the US would stand these days if there had been no Iraq war, and forget for a second the money it has cost.


19 posted on 03/23/2008 2:41:17 PM PDT by Michael81Dus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

This is very disconcerting.

If David Kay dropped all investigation of WMD simply because of the Curveball then he was outrageously incompetent in his conduct of this investigation.

There is no way that Curveball is the only source for WMD in Iraq.

Der Spiegel and Kay seem happy to agree that he is.

Moreover, Kay seems to be more concerned with the security of his team than accurately locating the weapons.

There was a cover up. Kay was part of it.


20 posted on 03/23/2008 7:18:58 PM PDT by lonestar67 (Its time to withdraw from the War on Bush-- your side is hopelessly lost in a quagmire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson