I guess I should go out and buy the book and read it first, but a quibble with the title. Curveball was used as a means to an end; the die was already cast, only excuses were needed, any real attempt at intellligence was impeded, and there's no way I'm blaming him for the war.

I know. The publisher dictated the title. Just saying.

"... the con man who caused the war"

compares with

"... the whore that caused Johny to loose his virginity".

And shocking news

"... the whore did not truly love Johny, she did it for the money".

To sane people, bioweapon laboratories on wheels we always preposterous. Hard to design, run and avoid accidence, but damn easy to explain why they were not found. Even though we claimed to be able to track the trucks from satelites.

If you look at the detailed history of actual bioweapons, it is not absurd. The first weaponized US system involved preparing a liquid slurry of the agent at Ft. Detrick in Maryland, where it would then be flown to an advanced bomber base, and used within the 48 hour limit of the preparation staying viable. This may seem clumsy, but if one actually considers how difficult aerosol powder delivery can be, it's not so absurd.

Since this development was during the Korean War, I was always amused that the North Korean "evidence" included everything except the quite distinctive bomblet of the only BW then in the US inventory. The North Koreans did exhibit some things that would have been consistent with Japanese weapons used in China.

Does "sane" exclude people with an actual knowledge of weaponization? I find a truck-mounted preparation far saner than what the US was doing in the early fifties. That doesn't mean that I thought Saddam had biological weapons or could deliver them.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Hey guys, the title is almost right; it should be

"The Con Men Who Caused the War ...and Their (Now Absurdly and Disgustingly Wealthy) Helpers"

The Con Men:  Cheney and Bush (in that order)

Their helpers:  The list is endless, but Curveball is on it (not even at the top, however)

Jan

No, Curveball has never appeared on television. I think you are referring to the 60 Minutes interview with Maj. Harith, who was furnished to the media by Ahmed Chalabi's group. It turned out that Harith already was listed in U.S. intelligence files as a fabricator, and 60 Minutes later broadcast an apology. Others who used Harith's information included the New York Times and Vanity Fair.

Howard:

It's a bit complicated. According to U.S. intelligence reports, Curveball indicated that the Iraqis had mastered the ability to dry and grind anthrax spores and other pathogens into an aerosol spray. The Iraqis had sought that ability before the 1991 war but failed. In this case, a single German report noting that Curveball said they had moved beyond wet, unconcentrated slurry was seen as a nightmarish development. Colin Powell, as you may remember, specifically warned the U.N. that Iraq had mastered the ability to produce dried bio-agent.

After the war, a British investigation of the case determined that German intelligence officers had misinterpreted Curveball's comment. Not only was the claim untrue. Curveball never said it.

As for missiles, Saddam gave up his chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs after the 1991 war but continued work on delivery systems. As you probably know, U.N. resolutions allowed Iraq to produce short-range missiles. U.N. inspectors and the Iraq Survey Group determined that his engineers exceeded the allowable limits (150 km range). But the war was about his suspected WMD, not his missiles.

I believe it's America's worst intelligence failure because we have never before sacrificed so much blood, treasure and prestige chasing an utter delusion.

Once again, Bush made the decision to go to war. Curveball helped provide the pretext.

If you deconstruct the pre-war intelligence, as the Robb Silberman commission and the Senate intelligence committee did, it's clear that Curveball was solely responsible for U.S. claims about Saddam's germ weapons. The investigators also determined, however, that CIA chemical weapons analysts believed the evidence on Saddam's nerve and blister gas production was ambiguous. But they ramped up their conclusions when they saw the "high confidence" bio-weapons reports based on Curveball. So two key areas rested on his shoulders. And by March, the IAEA already had determined that Saddam did not possess a nuclear weapons program.

That's why I consider Curveball so important.

Yes, I was aware of the missile restrictions and what he built. It's not clear if anyone filmed it, but, according to someone I knew on the inspection team, they tried to destroy the missiles with a bulldozer, and they were harder to destroy than they seemed. If the Iraqi engineers had pared off some of the weight that gave them the strength, one wonders what the range would have been.

Freeze-drying and grinding isn't that hard. Taking the electrostatic charge off the dried spores is the challenge, as well as things such as designing the aerosol dispenser, knowing the ID50, the characteristics of the aerosol cloud, etc.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Agreed. The point is they never got there.

Bob,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. That doesn't always happen.







Tom

I'm also curious as to how Curveball, a refugee coming out of Iraq where information was strictly censored, could have figured out within a few weeks what German intelligence would want to hear about in terms of Iraqi WMD. I thought of Iraq as a typical totalitarian society; I assume Curveball would have had no access to Western news reports while he was in Iraq, and internet access must have been rare or unheard of in those days. So how did he know what UN inspectors had been looking for? Did he go online as soon as he got to Germany and start looking up UN inspectors' reports? How did he figure this all out?

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone

I don't "blame" Curveball for the war. My book makes clear that he told minor lies and others twisted and magnified them to create a pretext for war.

Spies, Lies and the Con Man who Caused a War

Screw being "provocative"!

Be direct!

~OGD~

Curveball's story was a hoax, a con, and fraud...

...He was a nobody, a schlub, a former taxi driver who told a few lies to get a visa - and instead wound up as the crucial center of the Bush administration's case for war. His is a classic story of a simple man who gets caught up in events outside his control, and winds up having an extraordinary impact on history.

...Curveball was a young chemical engineer who fled Saddam's Iraq in early 1999 and made his way to Munich, where he applied for political asylum. At first, he said he had embezzled money and couldn't go back to Baghdad. But after a few weeks, he sat down with a special team of interviewers from the BND, the German equivilent of the CIA. And he began talking about what German files referred to as Biowaffen. It translates as germ weapons.

It's really fascinating how much the case of Curveball above parallels that of Rocco Martino of Italy, he of the phony Niger uranium story fame (he was the one who peddled the forged documents). To refresh the memory (from the Nur al Cubicle translation of Italy's La Republica investigative series on the issue):

Rocco Martino is a dishonest cop and a double-crossing spy. He’s got the aura of a rogue about him even if you are not familiar with his background. A captain of politico-military intelligence between 1976 and 1977, he was let go for unethical behavior. In 1985, he was arrested for extortion in Italy. In 1993, he was arrested in Germany in possession of stolen checks. Nevertheless, according to a Defense Ministry official, Martino worked for SISMI until 1999 as a double agent.

Martino rents a place at No. 3 rue Hoehl in Sandweiler, Luxemburg. He gets a fixed stipend from French intelligence and uses a consulting firm as cover: Security Development Organization. In other words, he also works for French intelligence. Serving two masters, Rocco tries his best. He sells information on the Italians to the French and information on the French to the Italians. That’s my job. I sell information.

In 1999, the pleasure-seeking Rocco is running out of cash. When he’s down to his last dime, he hatches a plot of his own. He's convinced that he’s got a brilliant and risk-free idea. What illuminates the light bulb is the problem the French are encountering in Niger.

To make this sort of a mistake once is horrible, but to make it twice simply defies belief. You're so right, Mr. Drogin, the only reason these two fools were listened to was because they were selling what others very much wanted to buy.

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." ~~ Abraham Maslow

Good question.

The three supposed corroborating sources that Powell cited included, as you correctly surmise, Mohammad Harith of the Iraqi National Congress. In retrospect, Harith's information didn't really confirm Curveball's account. He claimed to have come up with the idea for mobile labs, claimed they were parked in the Republican Palace garage when not in use, and said they operated only between Hilla and Kut. He never claimed that they produced bioagent - simply that they researched them. Most importantly, of course, the DIA had issued a formal burn notice on Harith and declared him a fabricator in May 2002, nine months before Powell's speech.

The second supposed corroborator, an Iraqi civil engineer seeking asylum, told DIA agents in June 2001 that technicians had filled biological warheads from trailers parked in underground bunkers at an armaments factry near Karbala. Workers wore special protective gear and anyone with "open sores was strictly forbidden access to these facilities," he told them.

Again, his unconfirmed information contradicted Curveball's version of events. After the war, the civil engineer recanted his account and claimed that he had been misunderstood.

The third supposed source was an Iraqi official who secretly spied for British intelligence under the code name Red River. Traveling outside Iraq in September 2002, he told his MI6 case officer that Iraq had developed fermentors for trucks or railway cars to produce animal feed. Red River admitted that he was quoting a hearsay account from a "new subsource" with links to opposition groups. "The informant was suspicious about the true nature of the systems," MI6 reported. The British wouldn't let the CIA meet Red River and the case became a sore point between the two services.

Red River's information, again, did not corroborate Curveball's account. He didn't even claim the systems produced pathogenic agents. After the war, the British reported that Red River failed a polygraph test and that they were withdrawing his file.

I'm not sure why President Bush and the NIE cited three sources total (including Curveball), while Powell cited Curveball plus three. 

Even before the Inspectors entered the idea of truck mounted bio-weapons labs seemed far fetched. First the notion that fleets of trucks moving from place to place would be somehow invisible to satellites was a little strange, a little pattern recognition goes a long way. Second though I am the last thing from an expert it would seem that control of vibration, heat and dust might be a little difficult on a typical mideastern highway. Three you have the issue of storage of the finished agents. I recall Scott Ritter pointing out that the high water table typical of Iraq made underground facilities to be difficult to impossible, not because it couldn't be done technically but because the combination of pumping facilities and the visible effects of dumping the water combine to make such a facility a "Look at Me!!" effect when viewed from telemetry.

And of course all of these problems were magnified once Inspector's were in and the US was trying to promote the idea that you could culture bio-weapons in a canvas sided truck in an Iraqi summer (I wouldn't attempt a freshman chemistry experiment in that environment). I don't even know that I have a question here but the notion that Powell's UN testimony was thought to be powerful and persuasive just baffles me, mobile bio-labs being just about as plausible as the science of the "In like Flint" movies of the sixties.

I couldn't agree more. I write quite a bit about precisely those concerns - and how they were ignored.

Unfortunately, the "experts" in U.S. intelligence kept finding excuses instead of answers. Saddam's scientists had jerry rigged weapons and equipment in the past, and the CIA figured the Iraqis didn't care if the trucks had accidents, or might leak. 

Ironically, the failure to ever uncover hard evidence of mobile germ factories (not surprising, since they never existed) was viewed as proof that Saddam hid them because they were so vital. So the lack of evidence became proof. Put another way, they made up the dots to explain the inconsistencies in the analysis.

Yes and no.

   I'm fairly sure Red River's subsource was from the Iraqi National Accord, not the INC. The CIA secretly sponsored the INC in the early 1990s, while the British backed the INA. They also sent out defectors, but none developed the notoriety of Chalabi's group. 

   Curveball never spoke of railway cars. I'm quite certain of that.  Red River was the only source for that. Bush and Powell suggest that all the supposed sources had the same information, including railway cars, but in fact, all four gave conflicting accounts. And the CIA acknowledged to Robb-Silberman that without Curveball, the other three meant nothing. Red River specifically said the railcars were built at a rail yard in Tikrit. U.N. weapons inspectors tore the place apart at least twice, as did the Iraq Survey Group. They found nothing to support the story.  

    You're absolutely correct on the single-cell protein. The subsource indicated that the fermenters produced single-cell protein for animal feed, and that of course was the cover story the Iraqis used at Al Hakim and other fixed bio-warfare factories after the 1991 war. So the new claim fit into the CIA mindset - even though it made no sense to produce animal feed or germ weapons on a train. Unlike trucks, they're not difficult to track, so to speak.

   Lots more details on all this in my book! 

I'm with you on this point, Tom. "Intelligence failure" implies that the perps actuallly believed their fictions to be true. But it gets back to the motive argument - if the motive was to control Iraqi oil and gas, and make sure it was traded in dollars, then I would think that "Intelligence success" is more appropriate. Or perhaps "Disintelligence success" is a better way to put it. Poor Gertrude Stein must be rolling over in her grave: a lie is a spin is a truth - or something like that.

I just can't imagine that the principles weren't fully cognizant of the fact that those bioweapons trailers were actually ballonmobiles purchased from Marconi Command & Control in Britain by Iraq in 1987.

Neoboho

To preface, see:

Cooked Intel: So the 'Stovepipe' Stops Where? TPM Cafe | Feb 9, 2007

Gee Bob, if this story that you've conceived is actually, as you say, "...a non-fiction spy story about how intelligence was collected and processed." -- Then, in this book did you fictionally speculate and elaborate on the chance that that Cheney and his minions were pressuring for the inclusion of info they wished to hear into the 2002 NIE and having that info stovepiped into the WHIG through (his) Cheney's office, ya' no what I mean?

I hope that isn't to convoluted for you.

I await your reply and answer.

~OGD~

I think you lost me.

I wrote a non-fiction book about how intelligence works - and in this case, utterly failed. I report and write the facts as best I could find and confirm them. I'm happy to let others deal with speculation, fictional or otherwise. 

The 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, . . . the most highly vetted product of U.S. intelligence . . . . Bob Drogin

Jeez.

And all this time I thought the 2002 NIE was cobbled together by Paul Pillar and his buds in a matter of weeks, because some astute Senators thought they should have something/someone to take the fall when the war they were determined to vote for blew up in their faces. Better though than those savvy Brits who simply plagerized their "intelligence" off the internet, eh wot?

Dude, you're fighting a losing battle with these guys. Just changed the title to "Bush lied people died" and they'll love it. It actually sounds like an interesting read.

~

Golly artappraiser -- you've been countered in your rating of a "1" ...

Nanny nanny nanny . . .

Bwahahahaha

~OGD~

Nah, the 5 rating was already there when I put mine. Apparently, that person likes to see personal baiting and personal attacks and they are free to vote in support of that, I guess. But I am equally free to show my disapproval. I just happen to like the Cafe metaphor over the Barroom Brawl metaphor and don't like to see people try to pick fights over past posting records. Just not the kind of "discussion" I prefer as a user of the site. I was pleased to see that he did not take your bait of trying to anger him. If he had I probably would have downrated that, too.

Thanks wordie, but I'm way ahead of ya. eRiposte and I are friends. I think he even cites me in there somewhere.

Ahh, well, I sincerely hope that my comment didn't give you the impression that I wasn't aware that you are way, way ahead of me anyway. :) I'm just an anonymous poster delving into a lot of this material through google searches. I'm bright enough, I think, to see a pattern that rouses my suspicions, but I'm hardly a historian, nor capable of marshalling the facts the way that you and eRiposte have. eRiposte's analysis of the Niger claims seemed to me - how can I describe it? Almost surgical in it's precision and depth. I'm impressed that you know him. I'm also more than a little curious about eRiposte's background. Does he have legal training? Or?

The gist of my thesis is that during the run up to the war, weak-but-real intelligence that suggested Iraq's WMDs suddenly started getting corroborated by intelligence we now know is fake. About week before the start of the admin's propaganda campaign for war, Red River's subsource confirmed Curveball for MI6. The same thing happened with the Niger Documents. The week before the propaganda campaign, MI6 learns of a 'second source' that says Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger.

As for the propaganda campaign that ultimately led to war, it almost seems to me it started much earlier, in fact, right after the end of the Gulf War, with the first President Bush:

In May, 1991, President George H. W. Bush signed a covert "lethal finding" that authorized the C.I.A. to spend a hundred million dollars to "create the conditions for removal of Saddam Hussein from power."

The additional information that you've outlined, about how the two questionable sources that we now know to have been fabricating their info, both received confirmation from another source, seems to be consistent with my sense that there are parallels, as yet perhaps inadequately explored, between the Curveball story and the Rocco Martino story.

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." ~~ Abraham Maslow