Ex-CIA Chiefs Rebut Bush Panel Conclusions

AP ^ | 4/1/5 | KATHERINE SHRADER

[SmithL]

WASHINGTON -- Two former CIA chiefs on Friday disputed claims cited by a presidential commission that agency officials warned them that the government's leading source on Iraq's biological weapons had a reputation for making things up.

In a scathing report released Thursday, President Bush's intelligence commission found that the CIA "failed to convey to policy-makers new information casting serious doubt on the reliability of a human intelligence source known as 'Curveball.'" The commission found that several agency officers said they had doubts about the source and raised those doubts with senior leadership, including then-CIA Director George Tenet.

In separate statements Friday, Tenet and former acting CIA Director John McLaughlin denied the accounts.

"It is deeply troubling to me that there was information apparently available within CIA as of late September or October of 2002 indicating that Curveball may have been a fabricator," Tenet said in a detailed seven-page rebuttal. "There is nothing more serious or galvanizing in the intelligence business than associating the word fabricator with a human source."

McLaughlin said "unequivocally" that he wouldn't have allowed Curveball's information to be used "if someone had made these doubts clear."

Despite the apparent concerns, the commission found that information from Curveball remained a centerpiece of former Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations about the need to attack Iraq, as well as in an authoritative intelligence estimate prepared for policy-makers in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Curveball was an Iraqi defector living in Europe who became a source for German intelligence officials, who then passed the information to Americans. He provided detailed accounts of Iraq's purported mobile weapons labs and other aspects of the fallen regime's biological weapons programs that turned out to be false.

[SmithL]

So Tenet's not happy with his job review. I'm not happy with his inability to do his job.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Bush should have sacked this incompetent SOB on day one.

[SmithL]

I never understood why he didn't.

[Cicero]

Bush has strengths and weaknesses like anyone else. His biggest mistake was not to clean out ALL the known clintonoids and deadwood from ALL parts of the Executive branch. He did a good job with the UN contingent but left almost everything else the way he inherited it.

Bad mistake.

He was badly handicapped by the Chad Wars and clinton's refusal to work with his transition team. But that shouldn't have stopped him, it just should have slowed him down a bit at the start.

[Txsleuth]

I agree about getting rid of Tenet--but, like you pointed out, the Chad wars and such gave him a late start to forming his Cabinet, and even if he had picked someone else, by the time he/she would have been confirmed, 9/11.

After 9/11, I don't think a new CIA head would have had time to do any better job before Bush would have been looking Iraqs way---besides, I am not convinced that the weapons weren't there--

I have a feeling that Russia and Syria moved them and maybe even left some in Iraq---

It may be a long time before we know for sure, but I think a lot of this finger pointing is a bit premature!

[dgallo51]

We know Clinton and Marc Rich were intimately involved in The Mother Of All Enrons…Oil For Food Con…and they NEEDED WMDs to legitimize sanctions for bribes. Couldn't have fully operating Intel while giving away the Crown Jewells, so to speak...FOLLOW THE MARC RICH MOOLA! It's gonna be a doozie!

[Mind-numbed Robot]

I agree about getting rid of Tenet--but, like you pointed out, the Chad wars and such gave him a late start to forming his Cabinet, and even if he had picked someone else, by the time he/she would have been confirmed, 9/11.

There is no doubt that Clinton screwed up the Justice Dept., including the FBI, and also the CIA. He also left what his aides called some "time bombs" to trip up the new administration.

That there were WMD in Iraq is not in doubt. He used them, the UN inspectors found some, and he then moved them to his Baathist buds in Syria while we danced around the May pole with the UN, France, Germany, and Russia. He also sent his sons, some of his top aides, and lots of money to Syria to help with the guerrilla war designed to bring Saddam back to power. His sons returned to lead the insurgency and we are were we are now and they are where they are now.

[Cicero]

Almost certainly a lot of stuff went with those Russian "diplomatic" convoys into Syria. Also, probably, a lot of the top terrorists.