referred to by the codename he was given

"CURVE BALL”.

The Committee was provided with 112 reports from the debriefings of CURVE BALL. CIA, DIA and INR BW analysts all told Committee staff that CURVE BALL provided the majority of the specific detail in the IC's assessments concerning the mobile BW production units. An INR BW analyst told Committee staff that if the reporting from CURVE BALL was removed from consideration it would have reduced his confidence in the assessment that Iraq had mobile BW production units. The INR BW analyst noted that without CURVE BALL “... you probably could only honestly say that Iraq would be motivated to have a mobile BW program and that it was attempting to procure components that would support that."

Additional reporting from CURVE BALL, and additional human intelligence (HUMINT) sources that analysts believed corroborated his reporting, was instrumental in the IC shifting its characterization of Iraq's mobile BW production program from an assessment in December 2000 that stated, "according to credible US military reporting Baghdad now can produce biological agents in transportable plants" to the 2002 NIE's assessment that "Baghdad has transportable facilities for producing bacterial and toxin BW agents and may have other mobile units for researching and filling agent into munitions or containers, according to multiple | sources" (emphasis added). A CIA BW analyst told Committee staff that, "The big factor changing assessments that we had since the Gulf War was this body of reporting we got on the mobile BW program."

The NIE stated that CURVE BALL reported that, “. . . seven mobile BW production units were constructed and that one began production as early as 1997.” The NIE also said that, according to CURVE BALL, the seven units were produced

Reports from CURVE BALL provided to the Committee described the production of seven mobile BW production units. One report

suggesting that production was

underway in 1997. One of the reports also described the "construction of each of the new mobile biological weapons (BW) agent production

units."

The NIE stated that "the reported locations of these plants have been identified in imagery, but Iraq has most likely dispersed these units since the source defected." Several reports from CURVE BALL described the locations of the seven mobile production units.

to

Imagery analysts used this information to identify what they assessed to be the locations in Iraq described by CURVE BALL. In interviews with Committee staff, IC analysts indicated that they viewed the identification of the sites on imagery, and the fact that buildings were accommodate the mobile production plants as described by CURVE BALL, as corroboration of CURVE BALL's reporting. A CIA BW analyst told Committee staff that "we were able to identify the sites he had named to be agricultural sites housing these mobile plants. Stuff like that looked like more corroboration to us at the time." The CIA BW analyst also noted that while the IC was confident that it had identified the seven sites that CURVE BALL was discussing, "when we reviewed the imagery we couldn't find any evidence of the [mobile BW production] plants being there.

The NIE's discussion of the mobile biological production units concluded with the estimate that if all seven units were operational, Iraq would take "... approximately 14 to 26 weeks to produce the amount UNSCOM assessed was actually produced prior [to] the Gulf War."

1. Other Sources

The NIE stated that the information concerning Iraq's efforts to build evidence that Iraq in the mid-1990s

"The

evidence is described in a December 1996 HUMINT report that provided a translation The report

of two Iraqi handwritten notes described how the undated notes were written on Iraqi Military Industrial Corporation letterhead found in late 1995 and provided a summary of their contents:

The NIE also noted that another source provided information to the IC on mobile biological research laboratories. The NIE said, "in mid-1996 Iraq decided to establish mobile laboratories for BW agent research to evade UNSCOM inspections, according to

an Iraqi defector associated with the Iraqi National Congress

(INC)." is hereafter referred to as the INC source. The information provided by the INC source is detailed in a March 2002 Defense HUMINT Service (DHS) intelligence report. The report discussed a project involving several Iraqi ministries, including the Iraqi Intelligence Service, to procure labs that would allow Iraq to conceal "biological research operations" from UNSCOM inspectors. The report noted that the source was "unaware of the exact nature of the research conducted in the labs." This report, which does not discuss mobile BW production, was the only report concerning mobile BW units from this source. In addition to the INC source, the IC provided the Committee seven other reports concerning Iraqi mobile biological laboratories. None of these reports discussed mobile BW production units.

Although he was not specifically referenced in the text of the NIE, the IC also provided the Committee with an intelligence report from the debriefing of another Iraqi Asylum seeker A report from June 2001, which was the only report from this source provided to the Committee, said that Iraq had transportable facilities for the production of biological weapons mounted on trailers at a special armaments factory in Iraq, and that there were other Iraqi sites where biological weapons were produced. The report noted that protective gear had to be worn in these transportable facilities, which were housed in partially underground buildings that were surrounded by a fence. The report also stated that "anyone with open sores was strictly forbidden access to these facilities," and that "warheads with biological agents were stockpiled at this site."

Committee staff found several areas of concern regarding the HUMINT sources upon which the IC relied to build its assessments concerning Iraq's mobile BW production program. Those sources were CURVE BALL, the INC source, and