Dowd: "Curveball the Goofball" or Another Intel Report Not Worth Reading

All well and good, but where was the print media when these traitors lied the nation into war--the New York Times' Judith Miller was leading the charge with more Chalabi disinformation about chemical weapons or some such drivel-- which the NYT dutifully regurgitated.

A democracy cannot survive when the media does not do their job, nor when its citizens fail to remain vigilant. Will they aid and abet Dubya, if it becomes apparent that he and the neocons really do plan to commence bombing Iran in June? It is a very scary prospect, indeed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/opinion/04dowd.html?hp

Curveball's information was used to justify the war even though it was clear Curveball was a goofball. As the commission report notes, a Defense Department employee at the C.I.A. met with him and "was concerned by Curveball's apparent 'hangover' during their meeting" and suspicious that Curveball spoke excellent English, even though the Foreign Service had told U.S. intelligence officials that Curveball did not speak English.

By early 2001, the C.I.A. was receiving messages from our Foreign Service, reporting that Curveball was "out of control" and off the radar. A foreign intelligence service also warned the C.I.A. in April 2002 that it had "doubts about Curveball's reliability" and that elements of the tippling tipster's behavior "strike us as typical of individuals we would normally assess as fabricators."

But Curveball's crazy assertions had traction because they were what the White House wanted to hear.

The report warns the president to watch out for the "headstrong" intelligence agencies. If only the commission had concerned itself with headstrong officials at a higher level. Then its 601 pages would be worth reading.

integrity, Achmed Chalabi?

This mess was cooked up by the OSP. The End.

Iran used Chalabi to dupe U.S., report says

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001935950_iranchalabi22.html

>snip

""The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that for years Iran has used a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress to funnel disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets, according to intelligence sources.

"Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program (ICP) information to provoke the United Sates into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source who was briefed on the conclusions of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)....

Patrick Lang, former director of the DIA's Middle East branch, said he had been told by colleagues that Chalabi's U.S.-funded program to provide information about weapons of mass destruction and insurgents was effectively an Iranian intelligence operation. "They (the Iranians) knew exactly what we were up to," he said. He described it as "one of the most sophisticated and successful intelligence operations in history." "I'm a spook. I appreciate good work. This was good work," he said""

<snip

BTW, here is an easier access weblink to Maureen Dowd's column titled
I spy a screwup http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/03/31/opinion/eddowd.html

Key lesson is:

""The hawks don't want to learn any lessons here. If they had to do it again, they'd do it the same way. The imaginary weapons and link with Osama bin Laden were just a marketing tool and shiny distraction, something to keep the public from crying while they went to war for reasons unrelated to any nuclear threat...""