In his infamous speech before the United Nations on the eve of the US-led invasion of Iraq, Colin Powell told the world about "eyewitness" reports that Iraq's mobile labs could brew enough weapons-grade microbes "in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people." It later turned out that the "eyewitness" was none other that the Iraqi defector known as "Curveball", who was the source of much false intelligence on WMDs in Iraq.
Today's Los Angeles Times has a front-page article (free registration required) that describes the efforts of the German Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst - BND) to warn Washington about the unreliability of Curveball's information. The Times has been interviewing German, US, British and Iraqi intelligence officials since May of this year to research the story. The result is a clear refutation of the Bush administration's claim that it did not mislead the nation into war.
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.
Here is one telling excerpt from the long article which shows how the CIA analysts convinced themselves that Curveball's WMD accounts were true:
The analysts refused to back down. In one meeting, the chief analyst fiercely defended Curveball's account, saying she had confirmed on the Internet many of the details he cited. "Exactly, it's on the Internet!" the operations group chief for Germany, now a CIA station chief in Europe, exploded in response. "That's where he got it too," according to a participant at the meeting.
Over the past ten days, President Bush has been lashing out at his critics during speeches at US military bases in the US and Korea. He always brings up the case that "German, French and Russian intelligence" sources had confirmed that Saddam Hussein had WMDs. You can add that assertion to his growing stockpile of Weapons of Mass Deception.
Update: Die Welt has just picked up the story.
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