Nov. 4, 2007
Faulty Intel Source "Curve Ball" Revealed
60 Minutes: Iraqi's Fabricated Story Of Biological Weapons Aided U.S. Arguments For Invasion
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Video
Curve Ball Revealed
Bob Simon tells the story of the Iraqi defector known as "Curve Ball," whose fabricated story of mobile biological weapons drove the U.S. argument for invading Iraq.
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Video
Drumheller On Early Warnings
"Only on the Web:" Former CIA agent Tyler Drumheller was warned by German authorities that the Iraqi intelligence source known as Curve Ball might not be credible.
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Photo
Rafid Ahmed Alwan, seen here dancing at a Baghdad wedding in 1993. (CBS)
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Interactive
WMD Fallout
Controversy surrounds the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
60 Minutes spent two years, and traveled to nine countries, trying to solve the mystery. We talked to intelligence sources, to people who knew Curve Ball and to people who worked with him. As correspondent Bob Simon reports, Curve Ball's real name has never been made public, nor has any video of him, until now.
60 Minutes has obtained video of Rafid Ahmed Alwan at a 1993 Baghdad wedding, filmed six years before he became the key Iraqi source known as Curve Ball, six years before he helped launch the war.
Former CIA senior official Tyler Drumheller was an insider and watched Curve Ball emerge from nowhere.
Asked how important Curve Ball was in taking us to war in Iraq, Drumheller tells Simon, "If they had not had Curve Ball they would have probably found something else. 'Cause there was a great determination to do it. But going to war in Iraq, under the circumstances we did, Curve Ball was the absolutely essential case."
How did Rafid Alwan become Curve Ball? 60 Minutes' investigation led us to Germany, where in November 1999, Alwan arrived by car and requested asylum at a refugee center outside Nuremberg. The 32-year-old told German intelligence that he was a chemical engineer in Saddam’s Iraq, and that he had done so well in university he had been made director of a site at Djerf al Nadaf, just outside Baghdad. The Iraqis called it a "seed purification plant." In reality, he said, the place was secretly making mobile biological weapons.
He told the Germans specially-equipped trucks made their way to one end of a warehouse, entered doors there, hooked up to hoses and pumps and brewed biological agents. The germ trucks then exited hidden doors on the other side.
Alwan’s story fit what Western intelligence agencies feared: that Saddam might turn to mobile weapons to evade American bombs. The Germans hid Alwan in Nuremberg, then later in the town of Erlangen. He was given a code name: Curve Ball. He was interrogated once a week, sometimes twice, for a year and a half. He told the Germans he didn't want to meet with Americans. Only summaries of his debriefings were transmitted to Washington. Still, there were enough details to convince analysts at the CIA.
"Curve Ball was the one piece of evidence where they could say, 'Look at this. If they have this capability, where they can transport biological weapons, anthrax, all these horrible weapons, they can attack our troops with them. They can give them to terrorist groups,'" Drumheller says.
One of Curve Ball's reports was especially alarming: proof that the agents were lethal, something Curve Ball claimed he had seen while working at Djerf al Nadaf.
"He said, 'In 1998, working around these tanks, there was even an accident and 12 people were killed.' And that got everybody’s attention," Drumheller explains.
So much so that in February 2001, German and American experts met in Munich to discuss Curve Ball. The Americans revealed they had located Djerf al Nadaf on overhead imagery; 60 Minutes found it on Google Earth.
Produced By Draggan Mihailovich
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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See all 929 CommentsSee? Bush didn''t lie- Curve Ball did.
;)
apples. didn''t anyone tell you not to take
candy from strangers? half of cocaine is snowy
bleach. looks just like it, how sparkly.
go to the us treasury website immediately and
sign up for their newsletter. learn how the
treasury dept. has so many targeted. all criminal
proceeds i hate to tell ya are so taxable, criminals
might as well hang themselves, if their own
gang members don''t do it first. pirates of honor?
most of the time, all gangs having a falling out.
just imagine, the public, there are no nuclear
weapons, wars or any such things. its happiness
and peace and we all lived happily forever after
in the land of the disney channel. no such thing
as white slavery, black slavery, indian slavery,
or asian slavery. and everything is hunky dory
and you do get more. like britney sings, gimme
more, and you got more coming. britney would a
good late night talk show host. like johnny
carson would say, more to come. and britney could
say ''gimme more''. she so loves staying up late
at night. might as well just turn it over to spears.
i would if i was an exec. why not? what have got to
lose? the britney channel? chanel no. 5? she has
a fragrance now called ''believe''.
Heckuva'' job, Curvy!!!
American and European intelligence told the Bush administration that curve ball was a joke of a source but the Bushies didn''t care because they were looking for any excuse to invade Iraq and steal their oil.
Re: "Through a spokesman, Tenet denies ever seeing the letter."
George Tenet is a known, proven, chronic liar, even through a "spokesman''.
Many top WWII Nazis were convicted and hanged at Nuremberg, for implementing a script which is remarkably similar to that of the Bush regime.
THIS WHOLE ADMINISTRATION SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE LOST OF LIFE OF OUR YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN.
STAY THE COURSE IS NO LONGER AN OPTION.
IMPEACHMENT WOULD BE THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION.
Men like Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith compiled and cooked the fraudulent case for the illegal invasion of Iraq, through their "Office of Special Plans".
This was not a series of "mistakes", but an intentional and concerted fraud, and Corporate media outlets like CBS Newz presented the fraudulent case to the public as fact, unchallenged, prior to the invasion.
CBS and other mainstream "news" outlets are unmistakably complicit in the fomentation of the illegal war of aggression against Iraq.
notblue
Really, it''s now a matter of historical fact as the Bush administration has admitted it, that they we''re told months in advance of making their case for war that the yellow cake documents were forged and a fraud. They used the yellow cake documents any way. Same with this curve ball guy. They were warned by the the CIA and German intelligence that he was unreliable and that his stories couldn''t be verified. Bush used his testimony any way because all they wanted to do was find any excuse to invade. Google Project For A New American Century if you dare to know the truth. They were planning to invade Iraq long before 9/11.
Posted by notblue at 03:50 PM : Nov 01, 2007
And the yellowcake was the frosting !!
'' ... the u.s. folk drove their neighbors to such disparity that the u.s. folk found it more lucrative to pay fortunes to move operations to third world countrys in order to forclose on those people ... ''
Bush should be serving time at Leavenworth.
Posted by notblue at 03:50 PM : Nov 01, 2007
What on earth are you talking about? I realize as a Bush supporter you''re used to demanding that reality conform to your desires, but really, are you so desperate as to try and fool other people into seeing your personal delusions? Why not just point at a dog and say it''s a cat? The results would be the same.
Get a grip already. You fool no one. The only ones ''scrambling'' are the fools and idiots who still can delude themselves into thinking this administration is worth supporting.
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How utterly ironic.
A country with imbecilic national policies re immigration & illegal aliens fomenting a completely unjustified war of aggression against a non-threatening foreign population because of a refugee''s false statements made to enhance his own personal prospect for gaining a legal residency status.
The only way to improve on this story would be if "curveball" had been after a u.s. green card. :-)
D@mn clear what it says about "Presidential Medal of Honor Winner" George Tenet (Ha! there''s a joke), George "Dumbya" Bush, Gen. (Self-) Colon (-oscopy) Powell, and all the men & women in the republican party who have made this pointless war possible.
This should''ve been disproven long before we went into Iraq. I''m quite sure it was, but we won''t hear that story...
Roger inkart, what?
Posted by notblue at 03:56 PM : Nov 01, 2007
I bet Colin Powell isn''t laughing!
He has been asking himself "How he could allow himself to be sucker punched by a dry drunk like Bush ?"
So lets post a reward for the individual who can prove Cheney was behind 9/11...
This administration should be brought in front of the rifles.
It''s clear that he, like the Bush administration, was only seeing what he wanted to see. They got played by Curveball. And, of course, no one will ever be held responsible or have to pay for this mistake and lapse of judgement. Well, no one in the CIA or the White House at least.
Anyone care to guess at the motivation of "notblue"?
The fact that it can type and operate a computer seems to cast doubt on the idea that it actually believes the stupidiy and misinformation that it relentlessly offers here, does it not?
The fact that it can type and operate a computer seems to cast doubt on the idea that it actually believes the stupidiy and misinformation that it relentlessly offers here, does it not?
Posted by FeelFree1 at 04:06 PM : Nov 01, 2007
He seems to think that this article vindicates the Bush Regime for its invasion of Iraq. Some one else lied to Bush and Bush just passed it on to us as the truth. So does that work with stolen property too. When I worked in government, ignorance was not an excuse - in this regime it is the norm and standard along with neglect !
ramonbackwar,
Re: "If this guy isn''t arrested and executed, then we''re a pathetic country."
Is this the only step that me must take in order to avoid this distinction?
The mystery for future historians will be how could the press stay silent as someone claims there are WMDs and they have satellite pictures of where they are and the Weapons Inspectors were simultaneously finding nothing.
The same press is letting governments and oil companies claim there is plenty of oil even though discoveries keep going down after peaking in the 1960''s.
The mystery for future historians will be how could the press stay silent as someone claims there are WMDs and they have satellite pictures of where they are and the Weapons Inspectors were simultaneously finding nothing.
The same press is letting governments and oil companies claim there is plenty of oil even though discoveries keep going down after peaking in the 1960''s.
I can''t imagine any reasonable person would think this story in any way vindicates the Bush administration. So, I would imagine abour 24% of the nation would believe it does.
Once again, I would like to restate that the fraudulent case for the illegal invasion of Iraq was not a series of "mistakes", nor was it simply "cherry-picking". The fraud was intentionally cooked up by men like Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith, in the "Office of Special Plans".
The fraud campaign was no mistake.
The mistake here is that those who are responsible for the fraud, remain at-large and in power.
Never.
He was just more dirt to throw into Congress'' eyes.
Proves that water boarding works.
NeoCon KOOLAID!
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