Curveball was “crazy”, a “congenital liar”
Key Iraqi informant was ‘crazy,’ U.S. was told before war
Prewar claims by the United States that Iraq was producing biological weapons were based almost entirely on accounts from a defector who was described as “crazy” by his intelligence handlers and a “congenital liar” by his friends.
The defector code-named “Curveball” spoke with alarming specificity about Iraq’s alleged biological weapons programs and fleet of mobile labs. But postwar investigations found that he wasn’t even in Iraq at times when he claimed to have taken part in illicit weapons work.
Despite persistent doubts about his credibility, Curveball’s claims were included in the Bush administration’s case for war without so much as a caveat. And when CIA analysts argued after the invasion that the agency needed to admit that it had been duped, they were forced out of their jobs.</em>
