Free Republic

...[M]ore than 10 days after the bipartisan Robb-Silberman Commission debunked a major piece of the media's Iraq war narrative -- that Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress played a major role in the bad intelligence on Saddam's WMDs -- almost none of the outlets that sold the story have seen fit to correct the record or explain their reporting. An honorable exception is NBC's Tim Russert, who in any case appears to have been guilty of nothing more that believing what he read in places like the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek. On Sunday's edition of "Meet the Press," Mr. Russert...

In 1987, after he was exonerated of corruption charges, former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan issued the classic plea of the wronged man: "Which office do I go to get my reputation back?" Whichever office it is, Ahmad Chalabi may want to apply there as well. The leader of the Iraqi National Congress has been the most unfairly maligned man on the planet in recent years. If you believe what you read, Chalabi is a con man, a crook and, depending on which day of the week it is, either an American or Iranian stooge. The most damning charge is...

WASHINGTON - The CIA and members of Congress said they want to know how a presidential commission unearthed details on intelligence failures about Iraq's prewar weapons programs that previous investigations missed. Of particular interest is information that emerged in last week's report about how doubts were handled regarding a leading source on Saddam Hussein's alleged mobile biological weapons labs — an Iraqi scientist who defected to Germany, code named "Curveball." Porter Goss, who became CIA director last September, has instructed officials to determine what happened and why the details did not come to light earlier, said his spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise....

'Crazy' Iraqi spy was full of misinformation, says report An alcoholic cousin of an aide to Ahmed Chalabi has emerged as the key source in the US rationale for going to war in Iraq. According to a US presidential commission looking into pre-war intelligence failures, the basis for pivotal intelligence on Iraq's alleged biological weapons programmes and fleet of mobile labs was a spy described as 'crazy' by his intelligence handlers and a 'congenital liar' by his friends. The defector, given the code-name Curveball by the CIA, has emerged as the central figure in the corruption of US intelligence...

If you recall, the MSM, relying on unnamed sources repeatedly tarred the Iraqi National Congress and Ahmed Chalabi with being the source of false intelligence information on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Leaving aside for the moment that those sources undoubtedly were located within the agencies that the Commission found responsible for the bad intelligence, it did clear the INC of these false claims--not that you'll know, unless you take the time to read the Commission Report. Page 108 of the Robb-Silverman Report states: "In fact, over all, CIA's post-war investigations revealed that INC-related sources had a minimal impact on...

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...

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...