Throwing a Curve on Iraq

October 13, 2007
Throwing a Curve on Iraq

The defector knew impressive details about the trailers and Iraq's biological weapons programs. His claims were at the heart of the pivotal National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, the intelligence community's "gold standard" report. It concluded with "high confidence" that Iraq had chemical and biological arms. Curveball's information also found its way into Mr. Bush's State of the Union address in January 2003, which prepared the country for war, and into Secretary of State Colin Powell's February presentation to the U.N., which persuaded many skeptics of Iraq's danger and duplicity.

None of it was true. As Mr. Drogin and his colleague Greg Miller first disclosed in the Los Angeles Times in early 2004, Curveball was a fabricator whom the Germans were eager to keep to themselves, providing other countries only with transcripts of their interrogations. The Germans were worried, they said, about protecting their source and thus did not allow the CIA to interview Curveball until a year after the invasion. The "paper thin" sources who supposedly corroborated Curveball's claims, Mr. Drogin concludes, eventually proved to be worthless.

UN WMD Report: US and Britian hampered their work in Iraq

June 25, 2007
UN WMD Report: US and Britian hampered their work in Iraq

The report by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, or UNMOVIC, did not name its targets but several of its conclusions appeared aimed at the United States and Britain, which invaded Iraq in March 2003.

"Despite some skepticism from many areas within the international community, in hindsight, it has now become clear that the U.N. inspection system in Iraq was indeed successful to a large degree, in fulfilling its disarmament and monitoring obligations," said the unit's 1,160-page summing-up report.

Rockefeller: Cheney applied 'constant' pressure to stall investigation on flawed Iraq intelligence

January 25, 2007
Rockefeller: Cheney applied 'constant' pressure to stall investigation on flawed Iraq intelligence

"It was just constant," Rockefeller said of Cheney's alleged interference. He added that he knew that the vice president attended regular policy meetings in which he conveyed White House directions to Republican staffers.

Republicans "just had to go along with the administration," he said.