The curve ball that lead us to war.

[Justin24]

Exclusive: Curveball, the Defector Whose Lies Led to War
March 13, 2007 1:46 PM

Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz Report:

The Iraqi defector known as Curveball, whose fabricated stories of "mobile biological weapons labs" helped lead the U.S. to war four years ago, is still being protected by the German intelligence service, an ABC News investigation has found.

Intelligence sources, who provided ABCNews.com with the first known photo of the man, say he has been resettled in a small town near the Munich headquarters of the German service, which has continued to honor its original commitment made when he fled Iraq in 1999.

Curveball's false tales became the centerpiece of Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech before the United Nations in February 2003, even though he was considered an "unstable, immature and unreliable" source by some senior officials at the CIA.

Powell told ABC News he is "angry and disappointed" that he was never told the CIA had doubts about the reliability of the source.

"I spent four days at CIA headquarters, and they told me they had this nailed," Powell said.

Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage.

Behind the scenes at the CIA, however, a former senior official says he was trying to keep the Curveball information out of the Powell speech.

"People died because of this," said Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of European operations at the CIA, who has written about it in a new book, "On the Brink." "All off this one little guy who all he wanted to do was stay in Germany."

Drumheller says he personally redacted all references to Curveball material in an advance draft of the Powell speech.

"We said, 'This is from Curveball. Don't use this,'" Drumheller says. Powell says neither he nor his chief of staff Col. Larry Wilkerson was ever told of any doubts about Curveball.

"In fact, it was the exact opposite," Wilkerson told ABC News. "Never from anyone did we even hear the word 'Curveball,' let alone any expression of doubt in what Secretary Powell was presenting with regard to the biological labs," Wilkerson said.

Drumheller also says he met personally with the then-deputy director of the CIA, John McLaughlin, to raise questions about the reliability of Curveball, well before the Powell speech.

"And John said, 'Oh my, I hope not. You know this is all we have,' and I said, 'This can't be all we have.' I said, 'There must be another, there must be something else.' And he said, 'No, this is really the only tangible thing we have.'"

McLaughlin adamantly denies any such meeting or warning from Drumheller and also denies knowing that Drumheller had attempted to redact the Curveball portions of Powell's speech.

"This man never came into my office, sat down, looked me in the eye and made a case that Curveball was a fabricator. That didn't happen," McLaughlin, now retired, told ABC News.

The CIA has since issued an official "burn notice" formally retracting more than 100 intelligence reports based on his information.

Watch "World News With Charles Gibson" and "Nightline" for the full report.

 

[Harry Vest]

This is utter nonsense - everyone knows for a fact that Cheney and the Neo-Cons had plans to invade Iraq even before 9/11. This guy's testimony wouldn't have made a bit of difference. Just another scapegoat if you ask me.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I thought it was gyroball

 

[verte76]

Yeah, this is rubbish.

 

[trevster2k]

This is utter nonsense - everyone knows for a fact that Cheney and the Neo-Cons had plans to invade Iraq even before 9/11. This guy's testimony wouldn't have made a bit of difference. Just another scapegoat if you ask me.

I agree but his testimony or lies did make a big difference since it was just what the White House needed. Of course, now they want to blame the CIA for letting it be used in the speech, whatever.

This didn't lead the US to war. But it certainly helped the White House agenda of misleading the US public in believing Saddam was a threat. This regime was determined to attack Iraq from day one thanks to the PNAC doctrine and the 9/11 attacks were the perfect event to allow them to do it.

This is what "intelligence" is. And I think this is a good example of why the prisoners in Guantanamo deserve to see any evidence against them. Secret evidence based on "intelligence" is probably just as truthful as this crap. Ahmed Chalabi is another person who deserved huge scrutiny but instead was received as being totally truthful.

Prosecutors would have a hell of a time convicting people on the flimsy evidence used by the White House in building it's case for the Iraq war. It is shameful that shaky hearsay has and is being used to justify actions of the US government.

I don't believe anything the White House says, they have zero credibility. The first casualty of war is the truth and on it goes.