Want to know more about the man pro-war Bush administration officials relied on for "
intelligence" as they built their case for war? It was the Germans who brought him to us, and it is the Germans who are now doing the work necessary to uncover just how much of a fraud he was. Der Spiegel:
Five years ago, the US government presented what it said was proof that Iraq harbored biological weapons. The information came from a source developed by German intelligence -- and it turned out to be disastrously wrong. But to this day, Germany denies any responsibility....The man's codename is "Curveball." And in an earlier life, he played a crucial role in the geo-politics at the beginning of this decade: He was the man who provided vital "evidence" that ultimately contributed to the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies. But that role has since turned into his greatest problem: Everything he claimed to know about Iraq's weapons program, all the proof he presented, was fabricated. His lifeline, though, has yet to be cut: Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), remains loyal to their source. They keep him under cover and protect him from uncomfortable questions -- here in southern Germany.
... The German secret service actually had more to do with providing justification for the US invasion of Iraq than it would now like to admit. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder -- like his colleagues in Paris and Moscow -- was a vehement opponent of the war. But of all people, his own agents provided Washington with the key bit of "evidence" which helped fuel the war hysteria: the story about the mobile biological weapons laboratories. It was information that helped justify a war that has cost more than 500,000 lives and plunged the Middle East into chaos. And this information came from just one man: "Curveball."
He was, as Tenet said then, an "invaluable asset." Today, it is clear that "Curveball" is an imposter, a fabulist, a man who, in the US, is referred to as the "con man who caused the war."... Germany's secret service ignominy got its start in the winter of the year 1999, in a camp for asylum seekers known as Zirndorf. The man from the Sunni heartland of Iraq was 32 years old when he arrived in the barracks just outside of the Bavarian city of Nuremberg. The pale, low-slung buildings surrounded by barbed wire were hardly how he had envisioned freedom. Anyone who wanted to leave the premises for a visit to Nuremberg needed written permission; the camp was designed to protect the persecuted, but its resemblance to a prison was difficult to ignore. Anyone who landed here wanted just one thing -- to get out again as quickly as possible.
Among the numerous Iraqis in the camp, the rumor was making the rounds that one easy way out was via the branch office of the German secret service located just outside the Zirndorf gates. The agents there routinely questioned asylum seekers from Iraq.
... Rafed was able to provide the "Doctor" with a plausible explanation as to why UN inspectors had failed to find anything thus far: The biological weapons program, he said, was mobile. The laboratories, he claimed, were mounted on truck trailers so they could be easily hidden from inspectors. One of these mini germ factories was up and running when he left Iraq, Rafed said, and six others were being built. Another detail sounded particularly alarming: He said he knew of a 1998 accident that resulted in 12 casualties. The contaminated corpses, he said, were buried in protective metal coffins.
It wasn't long before Rafed's claims rose up the chain of command -- onto the desk of the BND president, inside the German Foreign Ministry, into the chancellery, and even across the Atlantic to the White House....
Still, soon after the initial enthusiasm for "Curveball," the first doubts began to surface. US intelligence aimed a spy satellite at one of the filling stations that Rafed had described in great detail. On the crystal clear photos, a solid wall could be seen where, according to Rafed's account, the entrance to the compound should have been. But both the Americans and the Germans wanted to believe their new source and pushed their doubts aside. The wall, surely, was only a fake.
Rafed was allowed to leave the Zirndorf camp for good after just a three week stay, and two months later he had his own apartment in Erlangen. He was granted political asylum soon thereafter. His Iraqi acquaintances who visited him from Zirndorf were envious. Rafed now wore suits. There was whiskey in the cupboard, and a television and stereo system in the living room. The BND arranged for more than 50 meetings, after which it seemed there wasn't a detail Rafed hadn't already mentioned. The "Doctor" met with him for the last time in the summer of 2001.
Then came September 11.
The series is long, detailed, and most likely confirm many things that you already thought you knew but weren't entirely sure of why. It's worth your time, I promise you.
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