Friends:

Today is my last day as guest blogger and author in TPM Cafe's Table For One. Thank you all very much for allowing me to share my excitement about my new book, "Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War." I really think the story is crucial to understanding how we got led into such a tragic and unnecessary war. Plus, if you'll permit me, it's a gripping read.

After the book was released last week, I appeared on The Colbert Report and on CNN. The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times both wrote hugely positive reviews. I was interviewed for an hour on the Diane Rehm show, on NPR, and spoke on about 15 other radio networks and stations. Other newspaper reviews and broadcast interviews are scheduled. The book is now out in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Translations are underway in Germany, Japan and Brazil. Plus the film is in casting!

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I consider the Curveball case the defining story of the pre-war intelligence fiasco. It obviously was not the sole reason that America went to war in Iraq. But if you deconstruct the intelligence given to the White House, the Congress, and the public before the war, it's clear that much of it rested on the shoulders of this one man.

Why do I say that? Because the Robb Silberman Commission concluded after investigating the case that Curveball was the principal source for all the pre-war claims about Saddam's biological weapons. Without him, the administration and its allies had no basis for it's frightening assertions about Saddam's supposed germs, toxins and viruses.

We already knew Saddam had no nuclear weapons, and wasn't close to getting them, despite claims to the contrary from Vice President Cheney and Condi Rice.

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Good morning! This is Day Three of my Curveball blog.

We've enjoyed a fairly spirited discussion the last two days. One very committed writer seems fervently convinced that the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Robb Silberman Commission, the Iraq Survey Group, the so-called Butler Report in the British Parliament, plus my new book CURVEBALL, all missed or covered-up the truth. That "truth," he writes, is that the tiny Office of Special Plans at Don Rumsfeld's Pentagon secretly and knowingly fed Curveball's false information to the Bush White House to hoodwink the nation.

It's an interesting theory. But there is no evidence - zero, nada, zip - to support it. Nor does it make any sense. As I wrote yesterday, Curveball's interrogations in Germany began during the Clinton administration. During the run-up to war, his flawed intelligence was not "stove piped" through secret channels or whispered in someone's ear. It was the OFFICIAL determination of the U.S. intelligence community. That's what makes the case so grotesque and the story so fascinating. Curveball's information was key to the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the president's 2003 State of the Union speech, Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N. Security Council, threat assessments given to Congress, and hundreds of classified documents and reports.

There was no need to slip this in the back door of the White House. George Tenet presented it to the president, and key members of Congress, on a silver platter, complete with charts, graphs and cartoon drawings. That's the real scandal in this case. It wasn't a dark conspiracy. It was worse - dreadful tradecraft, inept analysis, and spineless leadership that ignored warnings of problems.

Let me give you some examples.

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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...

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Thank you for inviting me to blog on TPM Cafe. My name is Bob Drogin, and I am honored to share my new book, CURVEBALL: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man who Caused a War.

I will be happy to answer your questions or respond to your thoughts over the coming week. They can range from the nature of my reporting on intelligence and national security, the bizarre story of ineptitude and fraud that I found in Curveball, and even what it's like to appear as a guest on The Colbert Report, as I did last Tuesday. (hint - he's a wild man.) So let's begin...

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Welcome to Table for One, the guest-blogging section at TPMCafe.

This week we are joined by Bob Drogin, who covers intelligence and national security for the Washington bureau of the Los Angeles Times. Drogin joins us this week to discuss his new book (recently reviewed by TPMMuckraker's Spencer Ackerman), Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man who Caused a War, an account of the tales of an Iraqi refugee, codenamed Curveball, and the rush of the CIA and Bush administration to believe his claims about Saddam Hussein's biological weapons programs.

See earlier Table for One guest-blogs:
Jacob Soboroff, Sam Quinones, Jeffrey Toobin, Ben Naimark-Rowse, Charlie Savage, Congressman Steve Kagen, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Scott Winship, Robert Hormats, Bill McKibben, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Sen. John Edwards, the ACLU's Anthony Romero, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Andrew Rasiej, Gov. Tom Vilsack,Gen. Wesley Clark, Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Sen. Russ Feingold.