WP: Warnings on WMD 'Fabricator' Were Ignored!

[usregimechange]

In late January 2003, as Secretary of State Colin Powell prepared to argue the Bush administration's case against Iraq at the United Nations, veteran CIA officer Tyler Drumheller sat down with a classified draft of Powell's speech to look for errors. He found a whopper: a claim about mobile biological labs built by Iraq for germ warfare.

Drumheller instantly recognized the source, an Iraqi defector suspected of being mentally unstable and a liar. The CIA officer took his pen, he recounted in an interview, and crossed out the whole paragraph.

A few days later, the lines were back in the speech. Powell stood before the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5 and said: "We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails."

The sentence took Drumheller completely by surprise.

"We thought we had taken care of the problem," said the man who was the CIA's European operations chief before retiring last year, "but I turn on the television and there it was, again."

More:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/24/AR2006062401081.html?sub=new

[sabra]

1. but but but we found the WMD just ask Faux News!

:sarcasm:

[usregimechange]

2. Yes, they were as dangerous as spoiled jello.

[Lasher]

11. Rummy says the discovered ordinance could endanger our soldiers

Already one of our solders has dropped one of the empty artillery rounds on his foot. And the 20 year old sarin could still cause burns if someone broke open a container and used it as suntan lotion.

[llmart]

14. "ordnance"

n/t

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

15. But the tons and tons of DU scattered all over,

that is no problem at all!

[TomInTib]

31. Precisely.

We visited vast quantities of that crap upon Iraq in the first Whatever-it-Was.

Still are.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

46. Not to mention "lead" poisoning.

[usregimechange]

19. Or any type of misunderestimation of its contents, i.e. drinking...

[daleo]

3. So Powell was lying with the truth

"We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails."

which should have been (the complete truth):

"We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails from an Iraqi defector suspected of being mentally unstable and a liar."

[ShockediSay]

6. Right! Word games - half-truths - misrepresentation of facts

bullshit, plain and simple

[gratuitous]

4. And it took more than three years for this to come out???

Gee, thanks for your service, Mr. Drumheller. What'd you do, lose the number to the Washington Post? Car have a flat tire? Train late? An old friend come in from out of town? What?

Or did 2,500 soldiers' deaths finally shock you out of sleep? Or was it the atrocities at Abu Ghraib? The obscenity of Guantanamo? Which of the Bush administration's crimes against humanity finally jolt your conscience into action?

[Robb]

7. No kidding

:wtf:

[xxqqqzme]

32. my guess is his dog ate it.

Everytime I think of the hundreds of thousands of destroyed & wasted lives, all because that worthless AWOL POS stole an election just so he could be a 'war president'......not gonna finish that thought.

[Rosemary2205]

39. He retired in Nov and started talking in Feb.

I appreciate the sentiment that someone would have wanted him to blow his retirement straight to hell and get himself in jail for 30 years for treason and talk while he's still in the CIA back in 2003 but really, I doubt it would have done any good. He'd have destroyed his and his family's life for nothing.

IMHO a seasoned CIA big shot trying to work for change from within for 2 more years and waiting to retirement to spew the goods and spending 3-4 months getting your life in order before you throw your whole life out on the world stage is fine.

Just MHO of course.

[krkaufman]

42. Drumheller has spoken out previously

Here's a report of at least one other occasion...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0402-01.htm

[moblsv]

47. old news

This was specifically addressed in a book I read some time ago. Sorry, not sure which one, "state of war" maybe? What I found interesting was how long this took for the "liberal /sarcasm" (lazy, spineless) press to pick it up.

[LeahD]

5. I'm E-mailing this article to several friends. Let's keep this kicked. n/t

[Rose Siding]

8. Tenet and McLaughlin both say Drumheller's detailed account never happened

snip>
Portions of Drumheller's account of his meetings with McLaughlin and Tenet appear in the final report of the Silberman-Robb commission, which was appointed by Bush to investigate prewar U.S. intelligence failures on Iraq's weapons programs. The report cites e-mails and interviews with other CIA officials who were aware of the meetings.

In responding to questions about Drumheller, McLaughlin provided The Post with a copy of the statement he gave in response to the commission's report. The statement said he had no memories of the meeting with Drumheller and had no written documentation that the meeting took place.
.....
Tenet, responding to questions about Drumheller's accounts, provided to The Post a statement he had given in response to the Silberman-Robb Commission report in which he said he didn't learn of the problems with Curveball until much later. He did not recall talking to Drumheller about Curveball, and said it was "simply wrong" for anyone to imply that he knew about the problems with Curveball's credibility.
---------------

Shouldn't there be records of calls and meetings within the CIA? There is no credible reason for them not to address this. In fact, if Drumheller's putting this in a book, does it mean all this stuff is declassified?

It's just plain NUTS to see this in the paper while Tenet still has the Medal of Freedom.

[teknomanzer]

18. Curveball is a interesting code name...

The phase "throw him a curveball" comes to mind. Doesn't this indicate some kind of deception? Isn't throwing a curveball supposed to fool the batter because its difficult to judge where the ball is going? I sure as hell would not trust any word coming from an informant named "Curveball." But maybe the curveball was being thrown out to the UN and the citizens of the United States.

[VegasWolf]

9. Powell has plenty of blood on his hands. Blood dripping hands. nt

[LostInAnomie]

10. Can anyone really say that they are surprised by this?

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if we found out tomorrow that there never really was a crazy guy supplying the information and instead it was written by Cheney himself. The only thing that would surprise me would be that the MSM actually reported it.

[Blue_Tires]

50. +1

[killbotfactory]

12. But EVERYONE thought there were WMD mobile labs!!!

EVEN FRANCE!!!

Oh, wait...

[usregimechange]

13. Where is the DU activity on this? Is this not big?

[spanone]

16. There may never be accountability for the lost lives this administration

has been responsible for. From torturing to an illegal war which constitutes mass murder.

[Botany]

17. And this is why "they" went after Wilson too; we were lied into the war.

So not only was the story of the "yellow cake" uranium from Niger bogus,
the documents from Italy forged, and Curveball was a known liar. But did
all that stop the White House Iraqi Group, the Office of Special Plans, PNAC,
and a complicit media? No. The Iraqi war was a goal of bush and company
from day one.

Just like Florida 2000 the whole thing was built on manipulations and lies.
This is not a legal presidency but a criminal conspiracy which is just a front.

[whistle]

20. Iraqi defector suspected of being mentally unstable and a liar. ...

....Using George W. Bush as the benchmark standard of mental stability, I suppose the Iraqi source was considered to be normal!

[lyonn]

49. Curveball (mentally unstable) - bush (mentally unstable and

and baseball team owner) - Could it be one and the same or at the least a play on words? Possibly a Cheney joke

[Hissyspit]

21. "Mainstream" Media Reaction: "yawn"

One of the biggest scandals in U.S. history if not the biggest.

This is abso-fucking-lutely the stupidest period in American history.

[usregimechange]

23. This should be front page everywhere! Lets get it out there!

[leesa]

22. So the CIA can't figure out who dropped the ball between Drumheller

and Tenet....how is that possible? He proofed the text of Powell's speech and submitted it to someone, who presumably submitted it to someone else, etc. They can't figure iot out? Excellent intelligence work!!

The word conspiracy keeps popping into my head.

[usregimechange]

24. Rove wasn't involved.

[54anickel]

26. Well, Cheney was camping out at the CIA for quite a while. n/t

[young_at_heart]

25. Just watch Frontline's "The Dark Side" and you'll understand

Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld were determined to invade Iraq (9/11 sped things up)and NOTHING would stop them!

[karlrschneider]

27. kickin'

:kick:

[usregimechange]

28. Can we all take a minute to mediablast this. Thank you.

[usregimechange]

29. On MSNBC main page now!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

[lfairban]

35. Yea, it's there.

The link is just to the right of this pic:





:sarcasm:

[usregimechange]

30. kick

[usregimechange]

33. Kick, I can't be stopped!

[usregimechange]

34. CNN front page now!

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/25/iraq.wmd.reut/index.html

[LuckyLib]

36. One of the many examples of them creating their own reality.

It doesn't matter what 100 intelligence specialists have to say. What BushCo wants, they get.

[The Wizard]

37. You mean

the pResident lied to us?
Rummy, The Dummy and Dick, oh my.

[Ravy]

38. Powell had *much more* than first hand descriptions...

he even had an artist's rendition!!! I saw it with my own two eyes!



:sarcasm:

[whitedove]

40. Kick!!!!!

:kick:

[Joe Chi Minh]

41. I don't think Mr Drumheller has allowed for the righteous wrath

of the Neocons. War hath no fury like a Neocon non-combatant.

[usregimechange]

43. kick

[Up2Late]

44. This just reminds me of, "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit."

Powell was Under Pressure to Use Shaky Intelligence on Iraq: Report

Agence France Presse

Friday 30 May 2003

US News and World Report magazine said the first draft of the speech was prepared for Powell by Vice President Richard Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, in late January.

According to the report, the draft contained such questionable material that Powell lost his temper, throwing several pages in the air and declaring, "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit."

Cheney's aides wanted Powell to include in his presentation information that Iraq has purchased computer software that would allow it to plan an attack on the United States, an allegation that was not supported by the CIA, US News reported.

The White House also pressed Powell to include charges that the suspected leader of the September 11 hijackers, Mohammed Atta, had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence officer prior to the attacks, despite a refusal by US and European intelligence agencies to confirm the meeting, the magazine said.

(more at link) <http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/060403B.shtml>

Here's a longer version from The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,968581,00.html>

Or from The Nation <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030922/alterman>

[cushla_machree]

45. How convenient is this?

Tenet now says he did not learn of the problems with Curveball until much later and that he received no warnings from Drumheller or anyone else.

Obviously he had no idea about this. What a great excuse for the 'rush to war' crowd. I think maybe they didn't hear about any of this because of their fingers lodged in their ears and their heads up their assholes.

[usregimechange]

48. kick

[usregimechange]

51. kick

[Supersedeas]

52. With foreknowledge aforethought, the US lied to the World. No, worries...

Dr. Condi will fix it.