by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright April 3, 2004
All Rights Reserved.

ust as the White House got good news about the economy adding 308,000 jobs, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell dropped a bombshell, admitting that his Feb. 5. 2003 speech to U.N. Security Council about Iraq's mobile germ weapons' labs was based on faulty intelligence. No matter how you slice it, President Bush authorized war to protect the American people against gathering threats from Saddam's arsenal of deadly weapons. Before going to war March 20, U.N. Chief Weapons' Inspector Dr. Hans Blix warned the U.S. about its lack of proof on alleged weapons of mass destruction. For months before the war, Blix and his team of U.N. weapons' inspectors were discredited for finding no WMD. In a stunning reversal, Powell now says the intelligence on which he based his dramatic case to the U.N. was bad, urging the intelligence community to figure out what went wrong.

      Powell's “reversal” stunned the U.N. where Powell's Feb. 5 presentation met considerable skepticism. “It was presented to me in the preparation of that [portfolio of evidence] as the best information that we had. They certainly indicated to me . . . that it was solid,” said Powell, acting as if he had no clue his evidence was bogus. When Powell refers to “they,” he's talking not about the CIA or Defense Intelligence Agency but the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans controlled by Secretary of Defense Donald M. Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and former Defense Policy Board President Richard Perle, all of whom were under Vice President Dick Cheney. “I'm not the intelligence community, but I probed and made sure,” Powell told reporters on a transatlantic flight from a NATO foreign ministers' conference in Brussels, suggesting he did his due diligence.

      As it turns out, the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans bypassed the CIA, relying heavily on German Intelligence that almost exclusively relied on a dubious Iraqi defector, the brother of a top aid to Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress. Code-named “Curveball,” he gave German Intelligence the story about Saddam's mobile germ labs. Before Powell's Feb 5 speech, CIA Director George J. Tenet signaled that he could not confirm German Intelligence that relied almost exclusively on Chalabi's word. Chalabi himself has been questioned about now discredited reports of truck-based germ laboratories. Chalabi never hid his 20-year obsession with toppling Saddam, fleecing the CIA during the Clinton years for $100 million to arm a phony Shiite uprising. When suspicious trucks were discovered after the war, the White House claimed proof of WMD, despite the CIA's disavowal.

      When U.N. inspectors found absolutely no evidence of Saddam's nuclear program, the Pentagon diverted attention to truck and railcar-based mobile germ labs to explain how Saddam eluded detection. But after the war, the Pentagon was hard-pressed to provide proof of WMD, especially the bogus mobile labs concocted by Chalabi's defector. “Curveball's” now debunked story calls into question not only German Intelligence but the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, controlled directly by Cheney. As recently as January, Cheney stubbornly insisted that “the trucks” were “conclusive” proof WMD. Before making his “conclusions,” Cheney was already told by Tenet that the trucks were not mobile weapons labs. Even now, Cheney maintains that Saddam's WMDs will still be found. When Powell pitched the Security Council, he knew his evidence wasn't vetted by the CIA.

      Against his best instincts, Powell soldiered on, pitching the administration's best case for war. Only now does he admit that his evidence lacked verification. When examined more carefully, the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans used false reports from Ahmed Chalabi's handpicked defector. When asked about the fabrication, Chalabi said U.S. intelligence should have known better—or, put another way, checked it out. But in reality, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle knew that the U.S. case was built on Chalabi's stack-of-cards. Former U.N. Chief Weapons' Inspector Hans Blix said the White House is now “backtracking” on WMD, unable to back up its original case for war. Iraq never represented the threat to national security made by the White House. Powell can't have it both ways: Pretending he vetted his original allegations and now claiming he's not the intelligence community.

      Powell wasn't thrown a “curveball,” as he and the administration now suggest. Dick Cheney's forceful denials and stubborn insistence on both Saddam's mobile germ factories and finding WMD indicate, at the very least, his complicity with the charade at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. Chalabi got it right saying the White House should have done a better job vetting his farfetched tales about WMD and truck-based germ factories. Truth be told, key players—including Powell—knew the charges about mobile weapons' labs were off-the-wall, yet served the purpose of building plausible deniability needed to discredit Hans Blix and his team of U.N. weapons' inspectors. “Now, if the sources fell apart, we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position,” said Powell, continuing the façade that he and the big boys at the White House were left in the dark.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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