Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 5. november 2007 / Timeline November 5, 2007
Version 3.54. November 2007, 6. November 2007
11/05/2007
National Security Archive Update, November 5, 2007
THE RECORD ON CURVEBALL
Declassified Documents and Key Participants Show the Importance
of Phony Intelligence in the Origins of the Iraq War
Washington D.C., November 5, 2007 - CBS News' 60 Minutes exposure
last night of the Iraqi agent known as CURVEBALL has put a major
aspect of the Bush administration's case for war against Iraq back
under the spotlight.
Rafid Ahmed Alwan's charges that Iraq possessed stockpiles of
biological weapons and the mobile plants to produce them formed a
critical part of the U.S. justification for the invasion in Spring
2003. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's celebrated and globally
televised briefing to the United Nations Security Council on
February 5, 2003, relied on CURVEBALL as the main source of
intelligence on the biological issue.
Today the National Security Archive posts the available public
record on CURVEBALL's information derived from declassified sources
and former officials' accounts.
While most of the documentary record on the issue remains
classified, the materials published today underscore the precarious
nature of the intelligence gathering and analytical process, and
point to the existence of doubts about CURVEBALL's authenticity
before his charges were featured in the Bush administration's
public claims about Iraq.
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