Posted on 06/25/2006 1:03:51 AM PDT by bd476
ABC News
Iraq WMD red flags ignored, ex-CIA aide tells paper
Reuters
June 25, 2006
WASHINGTON - A former CIA officer says he made repeated efforts to alert top agency officials to problems with an Iraqi defector's claims about the country's mobile biological weapons labs but he was ignored, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
CIA officer Tyler Drumheller said he personally crossed out a reference to the labs from a classified draft of a U.N. speech by Secretary of State Colin Powell because he recognized the source as a defector, code-named Curveball, who was suspected to be mentally unstable and a liar.
Drumheller told the Post he was surprised when a few days later, on February 5, 2003, Powell told the U.N. Security Council that "we have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and rails."
"We thought we had taken care of the problem, but I turn on the television and there it was again," said Drumheller, the CIA's European operations chief before retiring last year.
He described repeated attempts to alert top CIA officials to concerns about the defector before Powell's speech.
He said he also issued warnings before President George W. Bush's January 28, 2003, State of the Union speech that included Bush statements about Iraq's mobile labs "designed to produce germ warfare agents."
The warnings had no visible impact on then-CIA Director George Tenet, the paper said, who vouched for the accuracy of the mobile lab claim in briefing Powell before his speech. Tenet now says he learned of the problems with Curveball much later and received no warnings from Drumheller or anyone else.
The influence of Curveball in U.S. claims about Iraqi bioweapons programs has been described in reports by the Los Angeles Times and a commission on U.S. intelligence failures, the Post said, but Drumheller's first-hand account added new details of the CIA's embrace of a source whose credibility was unraveling.
The paper said the source was living in Germany, where the country's foreign intelligence service had granted him asylum and immigration permits for his family in return for details on one of President Saddam Hussein's long-rumored weapons of mass destruction programs.
The German intelligence agency BND passed the defector's stories to the Americans, but when pressed by the CIA it said nothing had been verified. Drumheller said a German official told him at one point, "I think the guy is a fabricator."
"He said, 'We also think he has psychological problems. We could never validate his reports,"' Drumheller told the Post.
When Drumheller relayed the warnings, it sparked a series of contentious meetings with other CIA analysts who believed reports from the source, whose name has never been revealed.
It's interesting that retired Agent Drumheller waited two years after the retirement of CIA head George Tenet to disclose this information to the media.
Flashback to June 3, 2004
MSNBC
George Tenet resigns as CIA director
Agency’s operations director also leaving, source tells NBC News
NBC, MSNBC and news services Updated: 5:22 p.m. PT June 3, 2004
"...At one of those sessions in December 2002, the CIA listed evidence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Unsure that Americans would find the information compelling, Bush turned to Tenet. “It’s a slam-dunk case,” Tenet replied, according to a recent book by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. No weapons have ever been found.
Tenet also accepted responsibility for the CIA’s approval of Bush’s assertion, since disproven, that Iraq had sought to obtain weapons-grade uranium from Africa.
Tenet has been through “a lot of ups and downs in seven years,” a senior intelligence official told NBC News, saying Tenet sought to deflect political criticism from distracting agents.
“I do believe he thinks part of his job is to protect us and let us do our jobs,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “We’ve all watched what he’s gone through, and he still shows up for the game every day...”
< Snip >
“...George has sought at every turn to bridge the gap between the CIA and FBI with one goal in mind — the security of the American public,” FBI Director Robert Mueller said.
“Due to his constant efforts to bring the intelligence agencies closer together, we are better able to predict the actions of our adversaries and to protect Americans from evolving transnational threats...”
George Tenet resigns as CIA director
Just another red herring, to try and erase the 500 WMDs found in Iraq report, from the sheeple's memory.
This story from ABC, and reported to be in Sunday's Washingon Post, should be filed in the Pure Bunk, Stuff and Nonsense, Unadulterated Baloney section.
Tyler's peddaled his nonsense before...typically just in time to make the Sunday edition.
Total for this search: $800
|
Contributor |
Occupation |
Date |
Amount |
Recipient |
|
DRUMHELLER, TYLER S |
BUSINESSMAN |
6/9/2005 |
$500 |
Pryor, Mark |
|
DRUMHELLER, TYLER S |
5/11/2005 |
$300 |
Landrieu, Mary L |
Agree. The timing is remarkable.
When is his book out?
Great find! Thanks Southack!
Arabic Broadcasting Company and Al-Reuters.
What top cia officals ???
Would Drumheller like to sumbit names to verify this story?
Good question
Mo1 wrote: "What top cia officals ???
Would Drumheller like to sumbit names to verify this story?"
LOL, he's not allowed to tell or he really is telling by implication. My guess is that he's trying to pin it on George Tenet.
LOL!
The traitors are falling all over themselves, bumping into each other just to get a warm spot in hell.
He's tells us everything else that he's not suppose to .. he can give names too
Apparently, they were dual-use labs.
I understand they WERE biological labs designed to create hydrogen for weather balloons.
Is that accurate? Anyone know?
That sure is the way it seems.
LOL .. Yea .. something like that
Can't let details get in the way
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