US Intelligence Thrown a 'Curveball'

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 scrutiny.

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.
(Reuters)