Source "Curveball" blamed in U.S. intel failure - Reuters AlertNet -

Reuters AlertNet - Source "Curveball" blamed in U.S. intel failure: "WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - In building its case for the Iraq war, the Bush administration relied on bogus intelligence from a mysterious Iraqi chemical engineer code-named 'Curveball,' whose dramatic tips about mobile germ labs made their way to top policymakers with little vetting.

In its final report issued on Thursday, the presidential commission that investigated intelligence failures in Iraq cast Curveball as the 'pivotal' source behind the intelligence community's escalating warnings about Iraq's biological weapons programs before the invasion.

Assertions that Iraq was cooking up biological agents in mobile labs to elude international inspectors and Western intelligence services -- based almost exclusively on Curveball's information -- became what the report called one of the 'most important and alarming' assessments in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate cited by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in justifying the war."