HUMIT Review of "How U.S. Fell Under the Spell of 'Curveball'"

The Iraqi informant's German handlers say they had told U.S. officials that his information was 'not proven,' and were shocked when President Bush and Colin L. Powell used it in key prewar speeches (Drogin and Goetz 2005).

Human intelligence is one area of intelligence that can often be prone to errors because of its subjective nature. There are many motives for some informants to provide false or exaggerated information to further their own self-interests. Despite this being commonly known, human intelligence is often relied upon heavily and there can be no better example than how the U.S. relied upon the information provided by an informant known as "Curveball" as a pretext for an Iraqi invasion. However, the information that the informant provided was either completely fabricated or at least greatly exaggerated.

The German intelligence agency had access to many former Iraqi nationals because Germany was a popular destination for Iraqi ex-patriots. Curveball was one such informant that sought to immigrate to Germany and filed for a visa with the authorities. He claimed that he had acquired sensitive information about the inner workings...

These include mobile labs that could be used to develop and deploy biological weapons on a grand scale.
However, even the Germans were skeptical of the information that their informant would deliver them. They reported to the CIA on several occasions that their informant was "unreliable." Despite the warnings from the Germans, the Bush administration, including Colin Powell, repeatedly used the Curveball's account of the state of the Iraqi military as the primary reason for a military invasion. Powell also highlighted Curveball's "eyewitness" account when he warned the United Nations Security Council on the eve of war that Iraq's mobile labs could brew enough weapons-grade microbes "in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people. (Drogin and Goetz 2005)"

Despite all the claims that the U.S. government made about having solid evidence that suggested that the Iraqi military possessed weapons of mass destruction, it seems that they relied solely on the evidence and the accounts made by Curveball. Powell actually suggested that an investigation be conducted to help clear his name in regards to passing false information…