Germany warned Bush that Saddam had no WMDs

Kai Schwandes — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 09:53:18 -0400

According to the Washington Post: Aa newly declassified report of the Defense Department confirmed that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Well the Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND warned the Bush Administration before the invasion about just that:

"The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction say that the Bush administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims during the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Five senior officials from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, said in interviews with The Times that they warned U.S. intelligence authorities that the source, an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so.

According to the Germans, President Bush mis-characterized Curveball's information when he warned before the war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons. Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also misstated Curveball's accounts in his prewar presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, the Germans said.

Curveball's German handlers for the last six years said his information was often vague, mostly secondhand and impossible to confirm.

"This was not substantial evidence," said a senior German intelligence official. "We made clear we could not verify the things he said."

The German authorities, speaking about the case for the first time, also said that their informant suffered from emotional and mental problems. "He is not a stable, psychologically stable guy," said a BND official who supervised the case. "He is not a completely normal person," agreed a BND analyst."

I'm posting this because a recurring theme among conservatives is to state that Bush can't be blamed for misleading the American people about the dangers Saddam posed because all the other nations thought he was a threat.

It's clear the exact opposite was true.

Listen to counterpoint here. (Rush Limbaugh Show)

Tags: Curveball - Germany - Powell - WMD

Brainshrub.com - Germany International Politics

Germany warned Bush that Saddam had no WMDs