Iraqi Defector's Tales Bolstered U.S. Case for War

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration's prewar claims that Saddam Hussein had built a fleet of trucks and railroad cars to produce anthrax and other deadly germs were based chiefly on information from a now-discredited Iraqi defector code-named "Curveball," according to current and former intelligence officials.

U.S. officials never had direct access to the defector and didn't even know his real name until after the war. Instead, his story was provided by German agents, and his file was so thick with details that American officials thought it confirmed long-standing suspicions that the Iraqis had developed mobile germ factories to evade arms inspections.

Curveball's story has since crumbled under doubts raised by the Germans and the scrutiny of U.S. weapons hunters, who have come to see his code name as particularly apt, given the problems that beset much of the prewar intelligence collection and analysis.

U.N. weapons inspectors hypothesized that such trucks might exist, officials said. They then asked former exile leader Ahmad Chalabi, a bitter enemy of Hussein, to help search for intelligence supporting their theory.

Middle East list

If people want on or off this list, please let me know.

From further down in the Times story:

"Only later, U.S. officials said, did the CIA learn that the defector was the brother of one of Chalabi's top aides, and begin to suspect that he might have been coached to provide false information. Partly because of that, some U.S. intelligence officials and congressional investigators fear that the CIA may have inadvertently conjured up and then chased a phantom weapons system."

This could be a Hollywood movie plot except it's been done so many times before the public has lost interest.

It will never be made public, of course, but don't you think there are some heads rolling already both at the CIA and at Foggy Bottom for swallowing these "intelligence" reports hook, line and sinker? Not the higher-ups, of course, since they are rather immune to being sacked unless they lie to Congress or something, but the middle-management types who are responsible for evaluating what has been collected in the field and passing it upward if they deem it credible. It's obvious that someone didn't do the required cross-checking which something this significant must have before moving from "possible" to "confirmed."

I wonder if Curveball originated the story about those three freighters, too. You know, the ones carrying anthrax, ricin and whatever other biowar ingredients needed to contaminate every port they might dock in?

That was such a BS story I doubt many FReepers even gave it a second thought.

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