Late January, 2003: CIA Officer Deletes Erroneous Paragraph in Powell’s Upcoming Speech about WMD Trailers; Warns CIA Deputy Director

Tyler Drumheller, head of CIA spying in Europe, reviews a classified draft of the speech Secretary of State Colin Powell will be delivering to the UN Security Council on February 5. He is surprised to see the allegation that according to an unnamed “chemical engineer,” Iraq has mobile biological weapons factories. Drumheller recognizes the description of the source as that of Curveball, an Iraqi defector living in Germany who is suspected of being a fabricator. Only a few days before, CIA’s Berlin station chief warned CIA headquarters that Curveball’s statements could not be verified (see January 27, 2003). Drumheller takes his pen and crosses out the entire paragraph referring to Curveball, and then calls CIA Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin who meets with him immediately. McLaughlin, concerned, admits that Curveball is the CIA’s “only tangible source” for the story. “This is the heart of the case,” he says to the surprise of Drumheller. [Risen, 2006; Washington Post, 6/25/2006] Drumheller recalls, “And John said, ‘Oh my, I hope not. You know this is all we have,’ and I said, ‘This can’t be all we have.’ I said, ‘There must be another, there must be something else.’ And he said, ‘No, this is really the only tangible thing we have.’” [ABC News, 3/13/2007] According to Drumheller, McLaughlin says he will take care of the issue. McLaughlin later says he does not recall the meeting, but the final report of the Silberman-Robb commission cites e-mails and interviews with other CIA officials who back Drumheller’s account. [Risen, 2006; Washington Post, 6/25/2006] Despite the warning, the claim remains in Powell’s speech (see February 5, 2003).