'L.A. Times' Report Adds Fuel to 'War Manipulation' Debate

By E&P Staff - Published: November 20, 2005 10:30 AM ET

NEW YORK A massive report in the Los Angeles Times today appears to add further evidence to critics charging the Bush administration with manipulating evidence to promote the Iraq invasion in 2003. Once again the Iraqi defector known as "Curveball" takes front and center.

"The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction say that the Bush administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims during the run-up to the war in Iraq," Bob Drogin and John Goetz write.


They also reveal: "An investigation by The Times based on interviews since May with about 30 current and former intelligence officials in the U.S., Germany, England, Iraq and the United Nations, as well as other experts, shows that U.S. bungling in the Curveball case was worse than official reports have disclosed."

Five senior officials from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, said in interviews with The Times that they had warned U.S. intelligence authorities that the source known only as Curveball never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so.

"According to the Germans, President Bush mischaracterized Curveball's information when he warned before the war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons," the reporters relate. "Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also misstated Curveball's accounts in his prewar presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, the Germans said.

E&P Staff:

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