CIA, DIA Trade Blame Over Handling of “Curveball”

The CIA and the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Intelligence Agency are blaming each other for the handling of a discredited Iraqi defector known as “Curveball,” who was the main source for the Bush administration’s allegations that prewar Iraq had mobile biological weapons facilities, Newsweek reported this week (see GSN, April 7).

Officials familiar with the CIA said that the DIA was in direct contact with the German intelligence agency that managed Curveball. Defense officials, though, said the CIA “should look in the mirror” before blaming the Pentagon’s intelligence agency (Hosenball/Wolffe, Newsweek, April 19).

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