Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2005 : 10:06:12
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How U.S. Fell Under the Spell of 'Curveball'
quote: From the top of the Los Angeles Times article:
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.
This is a fairly long article but well worth the read given the response by Bush and Cheney last week to allegations that they knowingly misrepresented the intelligence on the presence of WMD, in this case focusing on the mobile labs.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
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