In making the case for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration relied heavily on intelligence provided from a single source, an Iraqi defector code named Curveball. This defector claimed he had inside knowledge of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program, specifically the existence of mobile labs (on trucks) that could produce deadly chemical agents like anthrax. Journalist Bob Drogin, who covers national security for the Los Angeles Times, describes how Curveball became an intelligence superstar before the Iraq invasion, only to be proven a liar afterward.
German intelligence, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), had passed on Curveball's claims to the American government, but the BND refused to allow American agents to speak directly with Curveball. Despite this lack of firsthand knowledge, despite warnings from the BND that Curveball was "crazy" and had "had a nervous breakdown," despite repeated BND caveats that "we can't validate what the guy said because we don't have any other sources," the Bush administration made Curveball's claims about Iraq's mobile biolabs a central part of its case for war.
In the fall of 2002, the White House trumpeted since-discredited intelligence before the American public, such as Iraq's attempts to buy uranium from Niger and the supposed links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Curveball's mobile biolabs got placed in that mix. The infamous National Intelligence Estimate of Iraq's WMD capacity, produced as part of White House efforts to win congressional authorization for war, relied heavily on Curveball, notes Drogin: "Biological weapons took the lead. . . . And virtually every paragraph derived from Curveball's information."
President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address, in addition to making the Niger uranium claim, also mentioned Iraq's "mobile weapons labs." A month later, Secretary of State Colin Powell went into great detail about these mobile labs during his presentation before the United Nations. As Drogin explains, Powell "asked [CIA Director George] Tenet repeatedly if the CIA was certain about the germ trucks. Tenet guaranteed him not once, but several times."
Yet Drogin describes open warfare within the CIA itself about Curveball's reliability. He refers to one meeting about Curveball as "a knife fight" between those who believed him and those who wanted more corroboration. Drogin believes the CIA was so invested in Curveball's credibility, had written so many reports and important analyses, that it couldn't even consider the possibility it had been lied to.
The White House and the CIA were hampered by wishful thinking, notes Drogin, seeing only what they wanted to see: If there was "no hard proof of the mobile weapons labs, it only proved how well the Iraqis had concealed them. The absence of evidence became proof of their existence."
Drogin details the long, fruitless search for WMD after the invasion. In one particularly embarrassing episode, he describes President Bush asking Paul Bremer and Tommy Franks, his top civilian and military leaders in Iraq, if either of them was in charge of finding WMD. When both said no, "Bush looked at them in exasperation. He asked again. Who was running the search?" Bush handed the job to the CIA.
The CIA spoke with Curveball directly for the first time a year after the invasion, and Drogin summarizes the interview: Curveball "recanted nothing, retracted not a word. It wasn't his fault if others exaggerated or twisted his account." However depressing, "Curveball" is investigative journalism at its skeptical and determined best. Drogin's not sure who played the role of con man best, Curveball or those who used him to sell the war: "The defector didn't con the spies so much as they conned themselves." Unfortunately, this was a con game that's still playing out.
Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the
Con Man Who Caused a War
By Bob Drogin Random House, 343 pp., $26.95
Chuck Leddy is a freelance writer who lives in Dorchester.
