Curveball

[FlaSoxxJim]

If in fact the Woodward/hadley story does break today or tomorrow, I would have been hard pressed to find a story that could overshadow that in importance.

 

I would have been wrong.

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines

 

It's a long (13 page) expose', and I'm only part way through it. Part of page 1 is pasted below. But it presents evidence from the German intelligence agents who were Iraqi defector "Curveball's" handlers for 6 years on how the White House completely ignored their warnings that Curveball's information on WMDs was unreliable, vague, often second-hand at best and in many cases apparently made up.

 

They also ignored warnings that Curveball was also an unstable nutjob.

 

Despite the current Cheney/Bush counteroffensive calling their dissenters reprehensible when they question their integrity on intelligence handling, here is yet another documented instance in which the White House cherry picked what they needed from intel they knew was bunk, padded the info on bio weapons where they needed to (see atricke), and presented it as fact to Congress and the country without sharing the reservations about the value of the intel.

 

How can 100% of the country see that the claims from the White House now that 'Congress saw the same intel as the White House' are flat out bunk? I hope this story has the legs it should heve and we start to hear from a variety of ongresspersons from both parties stting specifically that they NEVER SAW anything indicating that the tweaked intel reports were full of embellished versions of information that the administration had been warned was unreliable, unverifiable, an unuseable.

 

THE CURVEBALL SAGA

How U.S. Fell Under the Spell of 'Curveball'

The Iraqi informant's German handlers say they had told U.S. officials that his information was 'not proven,' and were shocked when President Bush and Colin L. Powell used it in key prewar speeches.

 

By Bob Drogin and John Goetz, Special to The Times

 

BERLIN — The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction say that the Bush administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims during the run-up to the war in Iraq.

 

Five senior officials from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, said in interviews with The Times that they warned U.S. intelligence authorities that the source, an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so.

 

According to the Germans, President Bush mischaracterized Curveball's information when he warned before the war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons. Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also misstated Curveball's accounts in his prewar presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, the Germans said.

 

Curveball's German handlers for the last six years said his information was often vague, mostly secondhand and impossible to confirm.

 

"This was not substantial evidence," said a senior German intelligence official. "We made clear we could not verify the things he said."

 

The German authorities, speaking about the case for the first time, also said that their informant suffered from emotional and mental problems. "He is not a stable, psychologically stable guy," said a BND official who supervised the case. "He is not a completely normal person," agreed a BND analyst.

 

Curveball was the chief source of inaccurate prewar U.S. accusations that Baghdad had biological weapons, a commission appointed by Bush reported this year. The commission did not interview Curveball, who still insists his story was true, or the German officials who handled his case.

 

The German account emerges as the White House is lashing out at domestic critics, particularly Senate Democrats, over allegations the administration manipulated intelligence to go to war. Last week, Vice President Dick Cheney called such claims reprehensible and pernicious.

 

In Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is resuming its long-stalled investigation of the administration's use of prewar intelligence. Committee members said last week that the Curveball case would be a key part of their review. House Democrats are calling for a similar inquiry.

 

An investigation by The Times based on interviews since May with about 30 current and former intelligence officials in the U.S., Germany, England, Iraq and the United Nations, as well as other experts, shows that U.S. bungling in the Curveball case was worse than official reports have disclosed.

 

The White House, for example, ignored evidence gathered by United Nations weapons inspectors shortly before the war that disproved Curveball's account. Bush and his aides issued increasingly dire warnings about Iraq's biological weapons before the war even though intelligence from Curveball had not changed in two years.

 

At the Central Intelligence Agency, officials embraced Curveball's account even though they could not confirm it or interview him until a year after the invasion. They ignored multiple warnings about his reliability before the war, punished in-house critics who provided proof that he had lied and refused to admit error until May 2004, 14 months after the invasion.

 

After the CIA vouched for Curveball's accounts, Bush declared in his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had "mobile biological weapons labs" designed to produce "germ warfare agents." Bush cited the mobile germ factories in at least four prewar speeches and statements, and other world leaders repeated the charge.

 

Powell also highlighted Curveball's "eyewitness" account when he warned the United Nations Security Council on the eve of war that Iraq's mobile labs could brew enough weapons-grade microbes "in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people."

 

The senior BND officer who supervised Curveball's case said he was aghast when he watched Powell misstate Curveball's claims as a justification for war.

 

"We were shocked," the official said. "Mein Gott! We had always told them it was not proven…. It was not hard intelligence."

[sox4lifeinPA]

but foreign officials still took money to not go to war, right? Anytime our "friends" look really adament about not going to war, but turn out that they took money to take that position, I'm going with our side.

[FlaSoxxJim]

but foreign officials still took money to not go to war, right? Anytime our "friends" look really adament about not going to war, but turn out that they took money to take that position, I'm going with our side.

By our side, do you mean the America that has come around to the facte thet they were hoodwinked, or the administration who refuse to give up on a losing strategy because the can't ever accept that the war and everything about it was ill-conceived?

 

I'm not a financial guy, but my brother was. he was the classic over-aggressive trader who I watched lose a bundle on several occassions when his arrogance wouldn't allow him to admit he had a poor position in the market and would 'cut and run' when he should have.

 

It only cost him milions of dollars and not thousands of lives. But think the analogy to the GWB administration's intractable and unchanging position on the war is appropriate.

[kapkomet]

By our side, do you mean the America that has come around to the facte thet they were hoodwinked, or the administration who refuse to give up on a losing strategy because the can't ever accept that the war and everything about it was ill-conceived?

 

I'm not a financial guy, but my brother was.  he was the classic over-aggressive trader who I watched lose a bundle on several occassions when his arrogance wouldn't allow him to admit he had a poor position in the market and would 'cut and run' when he should have.

 

It only cost him milions of dollars and not thousands of lives.  But  think the analogy to the GWB administration's intractable and unchanging position on the war is appropriate.

So offer us a solution. What would you have us do?

[FlaSoxxJim]

So offer us a solution.  What would you have us do?

A solution to the GWB administration deceit, since that is what the thread was about? Or the Iraq situation?

 

As for the Iraq situation, let's follow the advice of Murtha and (more substantively) General Casey. Begin drawing down troops after the December election.

 

[The December election, the earlier provisional parliment vote, the constuitution and the referendum vote all represent their own can of worms, of course. But if the administration has hung its hat on the meaningfulness of this process by which the Sunnis that are the source of the insurgency become still more bitter bitter and disillusioned, then let's make that the milestone they want it to be and begin redeployment after the election].

 

As for the administration, the deceits need to be laid bare. What that means for individuals in the administration politically and/or legally is less important than what it will mean for the "legacy" of this very dark presidency. The whole country is going to be dragged through the mud in the process, and it seems like those who sowed the seeds of this don't really care.

[Rex Kickass]

So offer us a solution.  What would you have us do?

 

Change tone, approach. Pledge to become more aggressive in actually doing the rebuilding of Iraq and controlling the fraud that's perpetrated in the name of reconstruction. Hire local Iraqis to actually do the job. Work harder to actively include Sunni leadership in a political solution to what appears to be a brewing civil war.

 

Start reducing troop levels as a show of good faith and give the Iraqi government an 18-24 month limit on large scale involvement within Iraq with a pledge to maintain a ready response unit in Iraq for a minimum of 5 years after that.

[kapkomet]

Basically, nothing short of removing the entire executive branch of our government is going to satisfy your requirements.

 

"Lay everything bare" of the allegations and deceit that is proposed here is nothing short of treason and would call for the immediate removal of all those involved. That's the ultimate goal of this path of thinking, and I don't think that could please some anymore (and I'm not saying you, Jim (or for that matter most everyone on this board), I know you have a lot more respect for our country then that). At the end of the day, though, all of this comes down to that. That's why the letting of the blood keeps getting nastier and nastier.

 

And at the end of the day, if all these allegations are true and we really go down that path, that's the end of the United States of America.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

A solution to the GWB administration deceit, since that is what the thread was about?  Or the Iraq situation?

 

As for the Iraq situation, let's follow the advice of Murtha and (more substantively) General Casey.  Begin drawing down troops after the December election.

 

[The December election, the earlier provisional parliment vote, the  constuitution and the referendum vote all represent their own can of worms, of course.  But if the administration has hung its hat on the meaningfulness of this process by which the Sunnis that are the source of the insurgency become still more bitter bitter and disillusioned, then let's make that the milestone they want it to be and begin redeployment after the election].

 

As for the administration, the deceits need to be laid bare.  What that means for individuals in the administration politically and/or legally is less important than what it will mean for the "legacy" of this very dark presidency.  The whole country is going to be dragged through the mud in the process, and it seems like those who sowed the seeds of this don't really care.

 

They are only planning on sending 92000 troops for the next rotation. That alone is a significant withdrawal of troops in and of itself ( down from the 160K + thats over there now ). I really believe that as soon as they get this election done the levels are going to start to fall and fall further throughout the year.

 

Bush isin't stupid. He knows that if he doesn't start bringing the boys home before the midterms then the Republican party is toast in the elections.