How German military intelligence messed up

Five years ago, the US government presented what it said was proof that Iraq harbored biological weapons. The information came from a source developed by German intelligence -- and it turned out to be disastrously wrong. But to this day, Germany denies any responsibility

Curveball was the pseudonym given by the Central Intelligence Agency to Rafid Ahmed Alwan (Arabic: رافد أحمد علوان‎), an Iraqi citizen who defected from Iraq in 1999, claiming that he had worked as a chemical engineer at a plant that manufactured mobile biological weapon laboratories as part of an Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program. Alwan's allegations were subsequently shown to be false by the Iraq Survey Group's final report published in 2004. Despite warnings from the German Federal Intelligence Service regarding the authenticity of the claims, the US Government utilized them to build a rationale for military action in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq,

More remarkable is that even after September 11 – when then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder promised "infinite solidarity" with the U.S. – the German government refused to allow the CIA to interview Curveball in person. Often, the Germans resorted to dishonest pretexts for their lack of cooperation, such as that Curveball didn't speak English, when in fact he spoke it fluently (and as if nobody in the CIA spoke German or Arabic). "It was a blockade that made it impossible for any other service to validate his information," David Kay, who ran the Iraq Survey Group that looked for WMD after the war, told Der Spiegel.

Even today, the BND has yet to admit to its own mistakes. The agency, now under the leadership of then-secret service coordinator Ernst Uhrlau, is unwilling to even answer questions about the case -- due to "fundamental considerations," as the service dryly informed SPIEGEL in response to a request.
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In March 2004, the CIA was finally, over a period of two days, able to question "Curveball" directly. The Americans were horrified, and they quickly became convinced that the Iraqi invented the whole story. In June, Rafed was officially classified in the US as a "fabricator."

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In all, "Curveball" is said to have been paid hundreds of thousands of euros. And the BND may now have to cough up once again. The intelligence service is considering giving "Curveball" yet another new identity, as well as one for his second wife from Morocco and for his son, who was born in Erlangen.