"Curveball" exposed...

[DeepIron]

You've got to be kidding me...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7075501.stm

"A US TV network has revealed the name of "Curveball" - an Iraqi man whose information was central to the US government's argument to invade Iraq."

"A presidential intelligence commission into the matter found that Curveball was a liar and an alcoholic."

So, we invade a country based on intelligence this loser hands out?

[Tchocky]

Quelle surprise

[Jimbuna]

Well....it was an ex alcoholic that sent the troops in, in the first place IIRC :hmm:

Based on the totallity of the intellegence, both indigenous, and foriegn, and sadam's obstantance pointed toward reason to invade. Hindsight is always 20/20 and can only be judged in the future.

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Well....it was an ex alcoholic that sent the troops in, in the first place IIRC :hmm:

I've never heard of an ex-alcoholic before.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by waste gate

I've never heard of an ex-alcoholic before.

Allow me to explain further.........someone with a (widely known) former drink problem

[Skybird]

German intelligence agents warned the US in a letter that there was no way to verify Mr Alwan's claims. However, his information was used in a speech by then Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN to back military action in Iraq.
The 60 Minutes report says the information was passed on by then CIA director George Tenet, who denies ever seeing the German intelligence letter.

Don't know what is more scary: that unconfirmed info is being used to manipulate the assembly, or that written warning never made it up to the head of CIA (assuming that Tennet is saying the truth of never having seen it - I personally even wouldn't believe him if telling me what time of day it is).

It reminds of the infamous London missile memo.

[fatty]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Don't know what is more scary: that unconfirmed info is being used to manipulate the assembly, or that written warning never made it up to the head of CIA (assuming that Tennet is saying the truth of never having seen it - I personally even wouldn't believe him if telling me what time of day it is).

It reminds of the infamous London missile memo.

Yep, if I recall correctly, the CIA and German intelligence agency were quite suspicious of Curveball's information and knew he was a drunk well in advance of the invasion of Iraq. It is all old news in fact and the information was published in the 2005 report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Originally Posted by Iraq Case Study Chapter

One of the most painful errors, however, concerned Iraq's biological weapons programs. Virtually all of the Intelligence Community's information on Iraq's alleged mobile biological weapons facilities was supplied by a source, codenamed "Curveball," who was a fabricator. We discuss at length how Curveball came to play so prominent a role in the Intelligence Community's biological weapons assessments. It is, at bottom, a story of Defense Department collectors who abdicated their responsibility to vet a critical source; of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysts who placed undue emphasis on the source's reporting because the tales he told were consistent with what they already believed; and, ultimately, of Intelligence Community leaders who failed to tell policymakers about Curveball's flaws in the weeks before war.

Curveball was not the only bad source the Intelligence Community used. Even more indefensibly, information from a source who was already known to be a fabricator found its way into finished pre-war intelligence products, including the October 2002 NIE. This intelligence was also allowed into Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations Security Council, despite the source having been officially discredited almost a year earlier. This communications breakdown could have been avoided if the Intelligence Community had a uniform requirement to reissue or recall reporting from a source whose information turns out to be fabricated, so that analysts do not continue to rely on an unreliable report. In the absence of such a system, however, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which disseminated the report in the first place, had a responsibility to make sure that its bad source did not continue to pollute policy judgments; DIA did not fulfill this obligation.