Curveball doubts were shared with CIA, says ex-German foreign minister
Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 11:43AM 
Germany's former foreign minister Joschka Fischer has accused the former head of the CIA George Tenet of making implausible claims about the handling of the Curveball case by the US.
On Wednesday Tenet, the director of central intelligence between 1997 and 2004, issued a statement on his website saying he discovered "too damn late" that Curveball – the Iraqi defector who became a key source for the CIA and the German secret service (BND) – might be a fabricator.
Reprinting an extract from his autobiography, Tenet claimed he only found out in 2005, two years after the Iraq invasion, that the BND had doubts about Curveball's claims to have witnessed first-hand Saddam Hussein's bio-weapons programme.
Asked by the Guardian whether Tenet's claims were plausible, Fischer said: "No. I don't think so."
Fischer said the BND realised some time before the war that Curveball was not a watertight source, and passed on his testimony to the CIA with warnings attached.
"Our position was always: [Curveball] might be right, but he might not be right. He could be a liar but he could be telling the truth," said Fischer at a press conference in Berlin to promote his memoir about the Iraq war.
Fischer said Germany was put in a "very difficult position" when the CIA asked whether they could "have" Curveball, or at least use his evidence to justify a war in Iraq. Germany's official position was that it would not join the coalition of the willing. Fischer himself famously told Donald Rumsfeld in February 2003 that he was "not convinced" about the case for war.
Reader Comments (1)
the two people with the BEST CHANCE OF KNOWING THE TRUTH (weapons inspectors on the ground) - Scott Ritter and Hans Blix BOTH SAID THERE ARE NO WMD IN IRAQ.
So, let's get this straight - our vaunted "intelligence" community listens to a KNOWN LIAR with BLATANT ULTERIOR MOTIVES over people who were in a POSITION TO KNOW.
Bullshit. George Bush was preparing for war with Iraq long before 911 even happened. This is a WELL KNOWN FACT. He was DETERMINED to go to war for reasons only he really knows, and our lame ass congress made is as easy as possible for him. And out of the whole sorry cast of liars and losers that enabled him, only Colin Powell has made any attempt whatsoever to set things right.