February 3, 2003: Top CIA Official Concerned that Curveball Might Pop Up Somewhere after Powell Speech and Undermine Case

CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin’s executive assistant sends a memo to Tyler Drumheller requesting that he look into the whereabouts of Curveball. McLaughlin wants to be certain that Curveball won’t pop up after Colin Powell’s UN speech (see February 5, 2003) and say something to the press that would contradict the information presented by Powell. “[W]e want to take every precaution against unwelcome surprises that might emerge concerning the intel case; clearly, public statements by this emigre, press accounts of his reporting or credibility, or even direct press access to him would cause a number of potential concerns,” the memo states. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 183] Drumheller is astonished to learn that Powell’s presentation will include a claim that Iraq’s mobile bioweapons labs can create enough toxins “in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people.” Drumheller recognizes the claim as originating with the Iraqi defector Curveball (see November 1999). Drumheller meets with McLaughlin, who promises an immediate investigation. What McLaughlin does or does not do is unclear, but Powell never hears about Drumheller’s objections. UN weapons inspector David Kay will later note, “[A]ll the fine-grained stuff that might have caused [Powell] not to use it, he wasn’t given an opportunity to hear firsthand.” (McLaughlin will later deny that Drumheller ever warned him about the Curveball intelligence: “If someone had made these doubts clear to me, I would not have permitted the reporting to be used in Secretary Powell’s speech.”) [Unger, 2007, pp. 281, 283]