A Non-Fiction Spy Thriller
I began my TPM Cafe blog yesterday by introducing Curveball as a minor Iraqi refugee who told a few lies to get political asylum in Germany - and instead helped give the Bush administration a pretext for war.
Since then, I've tried to answer your questions about my motives, my sources, my information, and my conclusions. Let me explain something at the outset that might help. I did not write a book about politics or policy. I make no recommendations for intelligence reform, offer no ponderous analysis of international relations, and don't try to psychoanalyze George Bush or Dick Cheney. Others can write those books.
CURVEBALL is a non-fiction spy thriller about real life people who are trained to lie, cheat, and steal. They're like the Sopranos of intelligence. They usually operate behind the curtain of secrecy and anonymity, without any public accountability. Unfortunately, the high-priest mystique of intelligence and national security too often conceals tawdry ambition, frightening ineptitude and weak leadership. The Curveball case was a prime example...
I became fascinated trying to understand how secret information is processed and perceived in the looking glass world of intelligence. Let me give a few examples.
After the Germans granted Curveball political asylum in 2001, he began to change his story. He suddenly forgot important details, denied some of the claims he previously had made, and became increasingly vague about what he actually witnessed versus what he heard from others. He suddenly argued that he did not really know what the mobile labs were designed to produce, and said that he never operated them himself - or saw anyone else do so.
Suddenly he didn't know if they could brew anthrax, or any other pathogen. He heard scientists speak only of Product A, Product B, and so on. He began to low ball his importance, insisting that he was just a trainee engineer, not a big shot or project manager. He admitted that a lot of his information was second-hand.
"He says one thing in the morning, another at night," his case officer complained.
Curveball also had semi-psychotic episodes. During interviews, he cried, he screamed, he heaped vile abuse on his handlers. He ran away several times, disappearing for days or weeks and sending the Germans into frantic searches. He lived in fear, frightened of assassination by Saddam's thugs or exile groups. He became delusional.
Instead of deciding he was a fraud, or a total flake, German intelligence authorities decided that he was even more valuable. That's because most defectors, especially Iraqis, tended to exaggerate their access and embellish their claims in an effort to increase their importance. Defectors grow psychologically and financially dependent on the spy services that take them in. Their information is their ticket to freedom, or to huge bonuses.
In Curveball's case, the BND decided that his apparent reluctance to hype his information - indeed, his desperate attempts to reel it back in - convinced them that he was legitimate and his original information must be real. So they ignored his frantic disclaimers. He became a star source - even though they couldn't confirm any of his account.
Similarly, Curveball said he had helped build the mobile germ factories from 1995 to 1999 at a dusty warehouse compound called Djerf al Nadaf, just south of Baghdad. According to him, the huge vehicles entered and exited the L-shaped main warehouse at one end, and exited through a strange swinging corner door that he helped design. He drew detailed diagrams, built scale models and described rooms, windows, generator sheds, etc.
But spy satellite photos showed that Djerf al Nadaf had no fortifications or other signs of military presence, as did Saddam's other weapons factories. Nor did they detect any containment facilities or contamination trucks one would expect at a site churning out deadly germs. Most importantly, the overhead imagery showed that a six-foot-high, solid wall had been built in 1997 - two years before Curveball left Iraq - that surrounded three sides of the main warehouse. The wall clearly blocked vehicles from entering or exiting as Curveball had insisted.
If the wall was real - and it clearly was - Curveball's story couldn't be true.
So CIA analysts decided the wall wasn't real. It was built to trick the satellites. It must have a secret gate, or was temporary, or would be dismantled when needed and rebuilt later. Eager to prove what they already believed, they found an excuse for everything that challenged Curveball's story.
Then it got worse.
Your analysis is a little vague. You never identify the operatives that made all this possible. You never delve into the mechanisms by which OVP pressured the CIA. You don't bring to light the pervasive role WHIG played in all this.
Your analysis would be much more fruitful if the central role of WHIG in stovepiping, fabricating, manipulating, and arranging for all this false intelligence was addressed.
October 23, 2007 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
The more I listened to your segment on the Diane Rehm show the other day, the more convinced I became that some Curveball, any Curveball, would have been invented out of whole cloth had one not shown up.
With Wolfowitz, Feith, et all convinced that WMD spectres would be the only way to put enough lipstick on this pig, other than the phony Niger yellowcake cabal was there ever anyone else in the wings to take over from Curveball?
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran
October 23, 2007 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a suspicion that lurking in this work is a grave failure of specificity and connecting the dots. Obviously there was a contingent in the CIA that enthusiastically fixed the intelligence. Drogin never identifies nor illuminates this contingent. What are their origins, their evolution, their doctrines and philosphy? Are they leftovers from the Cold War pining for a new enemy? Who are they? He constanty uses the blanket term "CIA" to obfuscate the true contingent behind the campaign. From recent revelations we know the CIA is not monolithic. Drumhiller and Pillar prove this. The failure to connect the dots is as illuminating and revealing as the failure of the intelligence that Drogin purports to investigate.
October 23, 2007 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been reading your book and have a few questions.
What I understand from reading your book so far, is that the BND was initially sharing some of Curveball's claims not with the CIA, but the DIA. Exactly when did the CIA enter the picture?
The clandestine service is kept separate from the analysis service, is that correct?
(By that I mean a separate reporting structure - WINPAC analysts reported to Alen Foley (ultimately) while the clandestine agents reported to whom? All heads of the departments reported to Tenet - would that be correct?
Who asked the CIA to examine the claims of Curveball? Was it WINPAC? Who gave WINPAC the information - did they get it from their own agency or from the DIA?
October 23, 2007 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
This was not a DIA game.
Rumsfeld's private military intelligence office was involved but please don't drag the DIA into this debacle.
October 23, 2007 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another point. Hasn't Drumhiller already noted that the analyst consensus was that Curveball was a fraud? So the intelligence fixing contingent could not have been a majority of the CIA. It was likely only a small faction. Yet Drogin tars the entire CIA with the failure. This seems like a shallow work. As such, it conceals more than it reveals and is therefore, whether deliberate or not, deceptive and misleading.
October 23, 2007 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, the analysts believed that Curveball was on the up and up, it was the clandestine agents who thought he sounded like a fraud.
After the aluminum tube debacle, the analysts were grasping at straws to prop up their report.
October 23, 2007 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you are mistaken BevD. Drumhiller was so adamant about Curveball, that he insisted that Powell not use the evidence provided by Curveball. Of course, he was ignored and the rest is hisory. Drumhiiler could not have been so confident had he not had the backing of consensus.
October 23, 2007 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Drumheller was clandestine, not analysis. He also wasn't that adamant if you ask me - he himself said in his book that he "mentioned it" to Tenet, the night before Powell's speech. I'm not saying that he didn't carry the alarm to the directorate's office, he just didn't insist on speaking directly to Tenet about it.
Drumheller certainly exonerates himself, but he still did not buck the reporting system or insist on going over any superior's head with his alarm. I don't believe he was as certain as he claims he was after the fact.
October 23, 2007 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, that's not correct. The DIA was the liason with German intelligence at the time.
October 23, 2007 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I see your point. This would have been a good topic for Drogin to illuminate further. Did he? If he didn't, why not? Furthermore, Drumhiller was certainly incredulous that they would rely on such flimsy evidence and he does use we and not I when discussing the matter. Who is this we? There were certainly factions battling it out. Is any of this explored?
October 23, 2007 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe Drogin answered that question on the radio, I believe essentially saying that Tenet sort of blamed him for not ringing the bell louder, and Drogin thought that was an incredible slam since he was one of the only ones to get it right.
Please correct me if I'm wrong on that Mr. Drogin, it was a tough drive into DC that day....;<)
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran
October 23, 2007 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
~
Hey Bob -- What's with the sudden left-turn out of that previous thread?
I couldn't help but notice that you left that thead before answering the question I presented.
Is what you have written in this thread your only response to what I asked related to the pertinent question I've asked? A simple yes or no will suffice.
To whit:
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.
But I won't hold my breath...
ahem...
~OGD~
October 23, 2007 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
It can't have been just the lone Drumheller. Hwwas was an agency head. He relied on the reports of his subordinates. They reported that Curveball was a fraud. So there was a network of operatives that was reporting the truth. Are you saying that Drumheller's network was completely divorced from the analysts in the US?
October 23, 2007 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
“……any Curveball, would have been invented out of whole cloth had one not shown up.”
It has become obvious, to anyone willing to see, that they were perfectly willing to pad and distort the evidence as one of the many ways they lied. I also think that even those who shared the lust for war but who also looked at the evidence with an open analytic mind, and concluded privately that Scott Ritter was essentially correct, thought that some WMD program or product would be found and that even a tiny amount would give cover to their lies.
The finding of buried artillery shells that had been emptied or had leaked clean of gas years before was jumped on and touted by elements of the Right as “proof” that Saddam was guilty as charged.
Think of what even a small Wmd program, if it had been found, would have meant. Gone would be thrust for most of the questions about bad intel, politicization of intel agencies, deliberate lies to justify a war, and on and on.
October 23, 2007 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, that's what Drumheller is saying. Have you read Drumheller's book?
October 23, 2007 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
This kind of politically influenced, see-what-you-want to see HUMINT is why, I think, I'm more comfortable with SIGINT and MASINT. While this administration went far too far with cooking things, there's been a constant to-and-fro, going back to OSS in WWII, about trying to make the intelligence services more responsive to legitimate needs of policymakers; here's a CIA history that gives an interesting background on the various reorganizations of analysis, and a bit of trying to work out a way to work with operations. Unfortunately, it doesn't go back to 1942 or so.
After doing some Wikipedia articles on the more technical intelligence disciplines, I'm struggling with a big-picture article on how the policy flow down and the services up (and across) should work, both for civil and military, strategic and tactical.
As a country, we haven't mastered the art of looking objectively at problems of intelligence. Here's one article on the British post-mortem for Iraq.
Somewhat further removed, but still interesting in looking at the intelligence & foreign operations vs. law enforcement is a paper from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). CSIS has a somewhat detached view, as does the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Both of these are pure analysis shops, without the constant conflict with the field people seen in CIA and SIS. CSIS, which I just realized shares abbreviations with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is a site worth visiting. The Canadians try, as a matter of policy, to publish as much of their work as possible.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 23, 2007 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree with every word; especially:
Think of what even a small Wmd program, if it had been found, would have meant...
What I can't figure out is why the Cheney/Bush regime didn't plant them. Were they afraid that word would get out if they did? Did they balk at killing the soldiers who would have been charged with planting them? Would it be too messy then to kill THOSE killers? Blackwater wasn't there yet, or it would have been a no-brainer. Anyone have any ideas? I personally believe they are capable of doing ANYTHING they think would work.
And look at them now; how many dems signed on to the "free pass to attack Iran?" Is there yet another smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud [stage direction-->] -- look off into the distance with a serious expression-- TAKE II
Remember, in the immortal words of George Dubya: "Fool me once...................................................................................
Jan
October 23, 2007 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Others have written at length about the topics you suggest. Perhaps others will write the analysis you seek. I wrote a book about the Curveball case. I think it's critical to understanding how we went down the rabbit hole in Iraq.
October 23, 2007 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
"No, that's what Drumheller is saying. Have you read Drumheller's book?"
OK, then why didn't Drogin investigate the reason for this? In a book that purports to explain how Curveball "caused" a war don't you think the reason why analysts in the US never vetted the intelligence with any outside source is worthy of investigation? Also, did Drogin even touch upon these allegations about OSP:
There are very few news reports in the American mainstream media that report on the office. In fact, the office is reportedly Top Secret. [Bamford, 2004, pp. 308] “We were instructed at a staff meeting that this office was not to be discussed or explained,” Kwiatkowski will later say, “and if people in the Joint Staff, among others, asked, we were to offer no comment.” [American Conservative, 12/1/2003] Colin Powell is said to have felt that Cheney and the neoconservatives in this “Gestapo” office had established what was essentially a separate government. [Washington Post, 4/17/2004 Sources: Top officials interviewed by Washington Post editor Bob Woodward] Among the claims critics find most troubling about the office are:
The office relies heavily on accounts from Iraqi exiles and defectors associated with Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress (INC), long considered suspect by other US intelligence agencies. [New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Salon, 7/16/2003; Guardian, 7/17/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; Independent, 9/30/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004 Sources: Greg Thielmann, Unnamed administration official] One defector in particular, code-named “Curveball,” provides as much as 98 percent of the intelligence on Iraq’s alleged arsenal of biological weapons. [CNN, 7/11/2004] Much of the information provided by the INC’s sources consists of “misleading and often faked intelligence reports,” which often flow to Special Plans and NESA directly, “sometimes through Defense Intelligence Agency debriefings of Iraqi defectors via the Defense Human Intelligence Service and sometimes through the INC’s own US-funded Intelligence Collection Program, which was overseen by the Pentagon.” [Mother Jones, 1/2004]
October 23, 2007 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for listening to the show. We got some great questions.
Curveball sought asylum in Germany in 1999, while Clinton was still in office, and his interrogations all took place before the 9/11 attacks. The Bush administration didn't invent him.
After the invasion, the Robb Silberman commission concluded that Curveball was the principal source of the flawed U.S. intelligence on Saddam's supposed biological weapons. Without him, the CIA - and the White House - had no case. I've seen no evidence suggesting any other informant played a similar role.
October 23, 2007 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think you've read my book. At least what you say doesn't comport to what I wrote.
October 23, 2007 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did anyone here make that claim? The Bush adminstration reinvented him, resurrected an already dicredited figure, and rehabilitated a myth. That was their job. To create myths.
October 23, 2007 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for reading the book.
As I write in the early chapters, the BND worked most closely with the DIA on defectors in Germany, rather than the CIA, for reasons dating back to joint debriefing operations during the Cold War. That was the case here. The BND passed their post interrogation analyses directly to a Defense Humint team in Munich, but never let them interview Curveball.
Once the DIA unit at Munich House received the so-called Hortensia 2 files from Pullach, they translated them, reformatted them into IIR's, and put them out into U.S. intelligence files. That's how they first got to the CIA.
Inside the CIA, the analysts in WINPAC reported to the Directorate of Intelligence, then headed by Jami Miscik. The operatives in the clandestine service worked in the Directorate of Operations, then headed by James Pavitt.
The CIA got involved because it was the primary U.S. agency for foreign intelligence. But the DIA team at Munich and Vaihingen generated or passed 95 of the 100+ reports that ultimately filled the CIA file. The WINPAC bioweapons team at CIA analyzed those Arabic-to-German-to-English reports and used them to reach its conclusions and to press the case at the White House.
October 23, 2007 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
So how did these directorates vette the intelligence? If it occurred in 1999 then they already knew Curveball was not a source to be trusted.
October 23, 2007 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, you still have not ackknowledged the role OSP played in this. Why not?
October 23, 2007 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure. I have 80 pages or so in the book about the battle that raged inside the CIA over Curveball. Suffice it to say that Drumheller and several members of his staff repeatedly, undeniably and vociferously questioned WINPAC's unqualified endorsement of Curveball. They took it to Pavitt, and they took it to McLaughlin, Tenet's chief deputy. Drumheller didn't insist that Curveball was a fabricator. He simply warned that no one had vetted Curveball as a source, no one had confirmed his information, the Germans had issued direct warnings, and the stakes were too high to rely on a single unverified source. Tenet's book slams Drumheller for not ringing the alarm loudly or often enough. My own view is Tenet can't forgive Drumheller for being right on Curveball when the senior leadership was so wrong.
October 23, 2007 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I will buy the book, the topic is an interesting one to me. But, I'll buy it from Powell's Books, a bona fide Blue company (unionized, donates to Democratic candidates), and not from Amazon Books, a company owned by a Bush supporter, one which makes 2/3 of its political donations to Republican candidates and which fired union organizers.
That choice ought to be a no-brainer. Well, if you're a progressive.
Thanks.
mp
With the supermarket as our temple and the singing commercial as our litany, are we likely to fire the world with an irresistible vision of America’s exalted purpose and inspiring way of life? -- Adlai Stevenson
October 23, 2007 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, how do you explain this? In the face of vociferous opposition from the most reliable source they went ahead with it anyway. What kind of people do such things in such important matters? Were they under pressure from an outside source? Who are they and what made them do it?
October 23, 2007 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but I'm having some trouble keeping the threads straight. I tried to answer this earlier, but I think it got posted somewhere else. What I wrote was:
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, about Cheney and his minions. That's not what my book is about so I can't really speak to the issue.
October 23, 2007 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
It wouldn't require speculation if you did some true digging into OSP and WHIG would it? I guess e will have to wait for future historians who are willing to do the hard work to get the whole picture.
October 23, 2007 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks. I investigate and explain the reasons you question at length in my book.
The Office of Special Plans played no role in the Curveball case. His information was handled through normal channels at Defense Humint at DIA and WINPAC at CIA. That's what made his supposed account so crucial. It wasn't something whispered in someone's ear. It was the official view of the U.S. intelligence community, a core part of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the highlight of Colin Powell's speech to the U.N., etc. They didn't need to sneak his stuff into the Vice President's office. Tenet delivered it directly to the president.
October 23, 2007 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, but it was already discredited. Who resurrected it?
October 23, 2007 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I investigated this case for three years and I am certain that the Office of Special Plans played no role in the Curveball case. His reports were handled through normal channels at Defense Humint at DIA and WINPAC at CIA. That's why his supposed account became so crucial. It wasn't something whispered in someone's ear. It was much worse, far more outrageous. His unverified "eyewitness" account became the official view of the U.S. intelligence community, a core part of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, part of the President's State of the Union speech, the highlight of Colin Powell's speech to the U.N., etc. No one needed to sneak his stuff into the Vice President's office. Tenet delivered Curveball's unconfirmed story directly to the president and to Congressional committees, complete with charts, graphs and CIA drawings. He told the White House what it wanted to hear.
October 23, 2007 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
So Winpac pushed intelligence from a source that the Germans had repudiated four years before? Maybe you should did deeper into OSP, WHIG and "Cheney's minions."
October 23, 2007 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
The BND never repudiated Curveball. They still haven't today. They repeatedly warned the Americans that they could not confirm Curveball's account. The head of the BND wrote that directly to George Tenet in a letter that I quote in my book. But since the BND never officially claimed that Curveball was correct, they never felt it necessary to officially repudiate him or declare him a fabricator. He and his family still live under BND protection in the defector protection program.
October 23, 2007 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Soi they took a rotten, fetid corpse of a source that any normal intelligence service would not touch with a ten foot pole and resurrected it. You describe a collosal intelligence failure and offer no explanation for it whatsoever. In fact, willfully ignore the most obvious explanation of all.
October 23, 2007 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's how the Germans viewed Curveball:
Tyler Drumheller, CIA chief in Europe. [Source: PBS]Tyler Drumheller, the head of CIA spying in Europe, calls the German Intelligence (BND) station chief at the German embassy in Washington hoping to obtain permission to interview Curveball. Over lunch at a restaurant in Georgetown, the two discuss the case and the German officer tells Drumheller that Curveball is “crazy” [Los Angeles Times, 11/20/2005] and that the BND questions “whether Curveball [is] actually telling the truth.” [Washington Post, 5/21/2005] They think “he’s probably a fabricator,” the German says. Drumheller is also told that the BND will not give in to CIA requests to gain access to him. After the meeting, Drumheller and several aides get into bitter arguments with CIA analysts working on the Curveball case. “The fact is, there was a lot of yelling and screaming about this guy,” James Pavitt, chief of clandestine services, will later tell the Los Angeles Times. “My people were saying, ‘We think he’s a stinker.’” But CIA analysts remain supportive of Curveball’s account. In one meeting, the chief CIA analyst argues that material she found on the Internet corroborates Curveball’s account, to which the operations group chief for Germany retorts, “That’s where he got it too.”
October 23, 2007 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I spent three years investigating this case, interviewed more than 80 people directly involved, examined thousands of pages of documents, and traveled to Germany, Iraq, England, Israel and elsewhere. I wrote a book that is more than 300 pages in length solely about this case. I assure you that I offer a very detailed explanation for what happened and why. I don't imagine you'll bother to read it, but it's there.
October 23, 2007 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for including that. I am the author or co-author of all those stories you cite from the Los Angeles Times. Go on my website, www.curveballbook.com, and you'll see the complete versions. We broke the first Curveball story in March 2004 and provided the most extensive coverage of the case, including a 7,500 word investigation that ran in November 2005. That led directly to my book.
October 23, 2007 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
How much credibility do you give to the story by an ex-Iraqi general that has come out and said that Saddam had his entire WMD stocks flown to Syria prior to the invasion?
It sounds plausible, given that he did the same thing with his air force prior to the Gulf war.
October 23, 2007 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please do explain how it ever got beyond the point demarcated in the citation provided above. It should never have gone beyond that but it did.
October 23, 2007 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
How much credibility do you give to the story by an ex-Iraqi general that has come out and said that Saddam had his entire WMD stocks flown to Syria prior to the invasion?
Zero. I’m not calling your idea a conspiracy theory but it fails to sound plausible to me for the same reason that most conspiracy theories fail. Too many people taking to much stuff from too many places, places we are trying intently to watch, and delivering them to another country where they are hidden without a trace and nobody has slipped up or ratted out yet.
October 23, 2007 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Drogin fails to answer the question that is at the heart of this whole matter. How did it come about the WINPAC pushed tainted, discredited intelligence? Is it normal operating procedure? It is pervasive in the agency? What contingent is behind it? In matters of covert limited operations it is dangerous and harmful. In matters of war, it is an execration.
October 23, 2007 8:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have a theory that WINPAC was a 'Team B'. Hypothesis-first analysis. Look it up on wikipedia. :)
October 23, 2007 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
tpmblog,
Seriously guy, not everything is OSP. Curveball was WINPAC's deal. Curveball was appearing in finished assessments in December, 2000. That's the closing days of Clinton administration. Plus, he was judged credible by two non-US intelligence services (the Brits' MI6 was one, probably).
As time went on, Curveball was looking shakier and shakier but WINPAC ignored it. WINPAC's director, Alan Foley, was in the administration's pocket. He was ready to clear anything the White House wanted, even an unconfirmed, alcoholic vice defector that the US hadn't even interviewed. That's just how WINPAC operated. It did the same thing with the tubes and Niger (to some degree). Other parts of the Intelligence Community wouldn't tow the White House line - DOE, INR, CIA NESA, etc. But WINPAC was more than happy to tell Bush, Cheney et al what they wanted to hear.
Occam's Razor says, no OSP required.
October 23, 2007 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
You answer the question. It was what the Whitehouse wanted. So most probably "Cheney's minions" were involved. They brought the pressure to bear on the agency and a certain contingent in the agency obliged. It would be nice if the specific mechanisms of this collusion were explored.
October 23, 2007 9:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know, things aren't as simple as "Cheney's minions". This isn't a story that can be reduced to good guys and bad guys. Personally, I think a "certain contingent in the agency" would have obliged even without pressure.
You're assuming there are specific mechanisms to be explored. If there's no direct evidence of collusion, you assume it's being deliberately concealed. If evidence contradicts your assumption, you assume it's the enemy's deception trying to throw you off the scent. Ironically enough, you're demonstrating exactly how WINPAC analysed intelligence in the run up to the war.
I don't mean to be rude, but it's because WINPAC was staffed with guys like you (your political polar opposites, at least) that we're in this mess in the first place. Like I said, some people didn't need pressure to oblige the admin. They were as fervent in their belief as you are in yours.
October 23, 2007 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Therefore Foley knowingly passed on discredited evidence? On what basis? His opinions and beliefs? You are joking miserably of course. Was Foley fired? Was there a congressional investigation? Was immediate termination recommended? Give us a break with this BS.
October 23, 2007 11:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Drogin seems to be trying to give the impression that the CIA gave the Whitehouse bad intelligence. That does not seem to be the way things went down. It seems the intelligence had long been out there and already discredited. OSP was charged with going over all the old intelligence with a fine tooth comb. They came upon Curveball and stovepiped it to OVP. OVP then pressures CIA for concurrence and gets it from Foley.
October 24, 2007 3:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
But... the CIA did give White House bad intelligence. And the White House was grateful for it. I don't get what's so hard to understand about this. WINPAC was like OSP but for weapons intelligence. As far as I know, the Pentagon's intelligence cell stovepiped 'connections' between Iraq and al-Qaeda. It didn't look at WMD stuff. As I said, Curveball was showing up in assessments from December, 2000. He was unconfirmed, but at the time he was considered "credible". There was no need to stovepipe Curveball. He was already there.
WINPAC concluded Iraq had mobile BW capability in October, 2001. Now, you and I agree that that was really stupid of them, they shouldn't have done it, since Curveball was a single-source at that point. But the fact is they did. There's no evidence anyone coerced them to do it. They were White House tools of their own volition.
Anyway, you asked, did Foley knowingly pass on discredited info? I'm speculating here, but I think he knew what the admin wanted and knew not to look too hard at intel that seemed to support the case for war. I think he believed Saddam was *hiding* his WMDs and that Iraqis would be falling over themselves to reveal secret caches of anthrax once he was out of power. After that, no one was going to care if Curveball told the truth or not. Of course, it didn't work out that way.
Was Foley fired? 'Retired' 2003.
Was there a congressional investigation? Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Robb-Silberman Commission. The reports are on the web. Maybe you wanna read 'em.
Was there an immediate termination recommended? Nope. He was helping the White House make the case for war. They weren't going to fire him for that.
Also, while we're on the topic, you should be specific when you're talking about OSP. The Office of Special Plans only came into existence around October, 2002. Before that, it was a much smaller operation called the Policy Counter-Terrorism Evaluation Group (PCTEG). Before that, it was an even smaller operation called the Wurmser-Maloof Project. Like I said, its function was to cherry-pick Iraq/al-Qaeda intelligence and later post-war planning. OSP's list of crimes is long (no. 1 on that list is disbanding the Iraqi Army and fueling the insurgency), but they weren't responsible for Curveball.
October 24, 2007 6:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
So Foley contravened Drumheller and the clandestine division, who actually met with the BND, and after the shouting match, on the basis of his beliefs and feelings? That seems plausible to you? The scenario I present seems more plausible.
October 24, 2007 7:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yep. Not just Foley. Tenet too. I don't understand why you're so eager to give these guys a pass. The Bush admin has done some horrible things. But these guys deserve blame too.
You're not George Tenet are you?
October 24, 2007 7:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Foley himself told you that he gave his consent to the intelligence after the shouting match. Please post the evidence.
October 24, 2007 7:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
What the hell are you talking about? Okay, seriously, would you do me a favour? Take a deep breath, count to ten, and stop being moron.
Feel smarter? No? Oh well.
This is fun! Let's keep going.
1). Foley did not speak to me personally. You asked me if I found the described situation "plausible", which I did, and so I replied, "yep". I didn't mean to imply that I had an eye-witness account of the scenario that you came up with, but I overestimated your grasp of reality. Sorry about that. It won't happen again.
2). The shouting match occured in December, 2002. Around that time, Foley told WINPAC analysts that (I'm paraphrasing, I wasn't there) if the President wanted to go to war, it was their duty to find the evidence to allow him to do so. Although Curveball had intitally looked like a credible source, over 2002 he was getting shakier and shakier. WINPAC ignored warnings from Drumheller et al, because without Curveball, the admin's BW case would fall apart. WINPAC wanted to help the White House make the case for war.
Does this situation sound plausible to you? (Don't worry, I won't ask you for proof if you say 'yes'.)
October 24, 2007 7:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
What is your evidence big shot? You are making wild assertions like you know something. How do you know all these things?
October 24, 2007 7:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
C,mon bigshot, post your evidence. If you noticed, retard, I qualified the scenerio with seems. You on the other hand have made factual assertions. Where's the evidence for these factual assertions?
October 24, 2007 8:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ha! Now you're thinking like a member of the reality-based community. Happy to oblige.
"The shouting match occured in December, 2002."
By this point, it was clear that the division believed there was a serious problem
with Curveball that required attention. A second meeting was scheduled on December 19 at the invitation of DDCI McLaughlin's same executive assistant...
Both the group chief and the WINPAC analyst characterized the exchange as
fairly heated... (Robb-Silberman Commission, pp. 96-97.)
"Around that time, Foley told WINPAC analysts that (I'm paraphrasing, I wasn't there) if the President wanted to go to war, it was their duty to find the evidence to allow him to do so."
One day in December 2002, Foley called his senior production managers to his office. He had a clear message for the men and women who controlled the output of the center's analysis: "If the president wants to go to war, our job is to find the intelligence to allow him to do so." (The Italian Letter, Rodale, p. 119.)
"Although Curveball had intitally looked like a credible source, over 2002 he was getting shakier and shakier."
In December 2000, the Intelligence Community produced a Special Intelligence Report that was based on reporting from Curveball, noting that "credible reporting from a single source suggests" that Iraq has produced biological agents, but cautioned that "[w]e cannot confirm whether Iraq has produced... biological agents." (Robb-Silberman Commission, p. 83.)
the detailee was concerned by Curveball's apparent "hangover" during their meeting. The detailee conveyed these impressions of Curveball informally to CIA officials, and WINPAC BW analysts told Commission staff that they were aware that the detailee was concerned that Curveball might be an alcoholic. (Robb-Silberman Commission, p. 91.)
In April 2002... the foreign service noted that it was "not convinced that Curveball is a wholly reliable source," and that "elements of [Curveball's] behavior strike us as typical of individuals we would normally assess as fabricators." (Robb-Silberman Commission, p. 91.)
In late September or early October... the division chief raised the issue of U.S. intelligence officials speaking to Curveball directly. According to the division chief, the representative of the foreign intelligence service responded with words to the effect of "You don't want to see him [Curveball] because he's crazy." Speaking to him would be, in the representative of the foreign service's words, "a waste of time." (Robb-Silberman Commission, p. 95.)
"WINPAC ignored warnings from Drumheller et al..."
Drumheller, a veteran of 26 years in the CIA clandestine service, said he and several aides repeatedly raised alarms after the lunch in tense exchanges with CIA [WINPAC] analysts working on the Curveball case.
"The fact is, there was a lot of yelling and screaming about this guy," said James Pavitt, then chief of clandestine services, who retired from the CIA in August 2004. "My people were saying, 'We think he's a stinker.'" ("How the US Fell Under the Spell of Curveball", The Los Angeles Times.)
"...without Curveball, the admin's BW case would fall apart."
...if the reporting from CURVE BALL was removed from consideration it would have reduced his confidence in the assessment that Iraq had mobile BW production units. The INR BW analyst noted that without CURVE BALL "...you probably could only honestly say that Iraq would be motivated to have a mobile BW program and that it was attempting to procure components that would support that." (SSCI Report, p. 148.)
"WINPAC wanted to help the White House make the case for war."
See Foley quote from The Italian Letter, above.
"You are making wild assertions like you know something. How do you know all these things?"
Not *like* I know something. I *do* know something, thank you very much. I know these things because I'm a quick reader and have a good memory. Is there anything else you'd like to know? Like, why do I rock so hard? I don't know the answer to that. I just do.
October 24, 2007 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm remembering that during the Cold War - probably toward its end - the CIA informed the WH that Russia was a basket case and incapable of launching anything approaching a full-out attack on and invasion of the US. Whoever was president - Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter - told the CIA to "keep it to themselves." (Apparently it was advantageous to keep the Cold War going and to keep the USSR as the primary enemy.)
Now, as then, responsibility for policy decisions lies with the WH.
October 24, 2007 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
~
Bob: Thanks for clarifying the limited scope of your work upthread for me, related to not getting into the actions of Cheney, Rummy and the rest of the cabal.
So Tenet was the carrier of the info up the stovepipe?
And this info in the stovepipe ended up directly in the WH?
And Cheney had absolutely nothing to do with generating this info?
And the WHIG simply was the marketing division to spread this crap to the gullible American audience?
~OGD~
October 24, 2007 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey RK4:
How ya' been.
I haven't seen hide nor hair of you around here since June. That was when this request was heard blaring over the Cafe PA.
But anyhoo -- I thought I'd drop a quick note to thank you for your normal diffusion by confusion comments.
Just to let know that they not going unnoticed.
~OGD~
October 24, 2007 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amen, amen, amen.
I was starting to wonder when "tpmblog" was going to start threatening to waterboard Mr. Drogin unless he fills in the dots that "tpmblog" requires to confirm his narrative.
October 24, 2007 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
~
Posted for everyone's general information
Let's see ... A certain longtime member dislikes another member, or doesn't agree with the other members opinion, or doesn't like the way the other member may badger or not with pertinent questions -- and then slams 1 ratings on that other member [here and here and here and here and here busy little ratings beaver].
Although it should be noted that at least this member named 'tpmblog' person has at the very least attempted to actually discuss the issues and merits of Mr. Drogin's book.
That's more than I can say for the person who's taken it upon themselves to down-rate... The down-rater has posted only one comment in three different threads totaling some 110 posts during this visit from Mr. Drogin, and it's nothing more nor less than a snide aside.
I'm not surprised. Par for the course.
Amen, amen, amen.
~OGD~
October 24, 2007 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
At the risk of weighing into this heated discussion, I really urge you to read CURVEBALL. I cover these events in great detail, and with extensive interviews and research that has not appeared anywhere else. It's a pretty gripping read, and there's a surprise ending about Curveball himself.
October 24, 2007 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good to know the Gestapo's on my case. Keep watching. You might learn something. :P
Look, buddy, you're problem isn't with me. It's with logico-positivism. You want to go exhume the corpse of C.S. Pierce and smack him in mouth a few times. That'll show him.
October 24, 2007 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yawn...
October 24, 2007 9:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I concluded some time ago that the WH and friends were obssessed idiots, not Machiavellian geniuses. They believed. Bush thought Saddam would be provoked into acting. This explains the "Let's have an airplane painted with UN colors get shot at" suggestion, as well as the huge uptick in air sorties the year before the war.
I also expected a prepared "incident". That it didn't happen was fairly astonishing to me. "What? They're actually doing this?" Yup.
October 26, 2007 7:34 AM | Reply | Permalink