wmd intelligence

November 20, 2005 3:47 PM

Curveball's motive, CIA officials said, was not to start a war. He simply was seeking a German visa.
You would think that there would be some serious repercussions for "mishandling" intelligence used to start a war.
Then again it's not like this is really news (dated 4/2004)
A different angle previously discussed here on Metafilter
posted by threehundredandsixty (12 comments total)

At this point, if you said Bush got his intel from a discarded Cracker Jack box, it wouldn't be surprising.
posted by fungible at 4:31 PM on November 20, 2005

It's only recently that I've heard of the circumstances of his telling of 'wild stories', namely hopes to get a visa.
It's like being motivated by some wierd anti-torture.
He was willing to say and agree to anything they wanted in order to get the treatment.

How hard are people like that to find?
posted by Balisong at 4:35 PM on November 20, 2005

This post could really use some tags, so those of us who are interested in going back and reading the historical progression in links from MetaFilter would have something to use.

Suggestions:
iraq
war
curveball
cia
posted by Kickstart70 at 4:41 PM on November 20, 2005

How hard are people like that to find?

DEAR HONORED SIR:

My name is Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, and I am interested to correspond with you in order to obtain an agent who can assist me in the recovery of valuable weapons of mass destruction from my native country of Iraq.
posted by spiderwire at 4:46 PM on November 20, 2005

CurveBall and Al Ibi. Makes one think that perhaps someone was trying to send someone a message about the validity of these sources....
posted by Freen at 5:47 PM on November 20, 2005

Yeah, I couldn't believe the name of Al(l)ibi as being true.. Al(l)ias wouldn't work either.
posted by Balisong at 6:08 PM on November 20, 2005

On Feb. 8, three days after Powell's speech, the U.N.'s Team Bravo conducted the first search of Curveball's former work site. The raid by the American-led biological weapons experts lasted 3 1/2 hours. It was long enough to prove Curveball had lied.
...
U.N. teams also raided the other sites Curveball had named. They interrogated managers, seized documents and used ground-penetrating radar, according to U.N. reports.

The U.N. inspectors "could find nothing to corroborate Curveball's reporting," the CIA's Iraq Survey Group reported last year.

On March 7, 2003, Hans Blix, the chief U.N. inspector, told the Security Council that a series of searches had found "no evidence" of mobile biological production facilities in Iraq. It drew little notice at the time.

The invasion of Iraq began two weeks later.

posted by kirkaracha at 6:37 PM on November 20, 2005

When you've made up your mind about the ends of an investigation before it's even begun, you not only only hear what you want to hear, but you hear everything you want to hear.

Now, I distinctly recall that scene from Fahrenheit 9/11 where both Powell and Rice basically say (in early 2001) that Iraq was effectively disarmed. I wonder how both of them managed to change their story so completely in, what, two short years?
posted by clevershark at 6:57 PM on November 20, 2005

Video and transcripts of Powell's and Rice's statements.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:13 PM on November 20, 2005

Yeah, well, Curveball may have given the US false intel, but what about the stuff from Dopey, Knucklehead, and Chuckles?
posted by moonbiter at 11:43 PM on November 20, 2005

Anyone get fired? Anyone? Hello?
posted by Smedleyman at 6:27 PM on November 21, 2005

So when does Curveball get his rightful Presidential Medal of Freedom?
posted by homunculus at 6:47 PM on November 21, 2005