The IC provided the Committee with a copy of an evaluation of the intelligence reporting from CURVE BALL that was submitted by DIA BW analysts. The evaluation stated that "overall, the fact that the source may be valuable and the reporting appears to be of major significance are presently compromised by reporting inconsistencies as noted in the guidance below."

The DHS intelligence officer responsible for collecting and reporting the intelligence from CURVE BALL was unable to tell Committee staff whether these concerns had been raised The DHS intelligence officer did not recall the particular evaluation provided by the DIA BW analysts, or if provided any information in response.

A CIA BW analyst told Committee staff that a Department of Defense (DOD) detailee who provided technical advice on CURVE BALL"... thought that the guy might be an alcoholic and that bothered him a lot." The detailee who provided technical advice to the CIA Directorate of Operations (DO) on BW matters, met CURVE BALL in May 2000 in order to administer The detailee is the only American intelligence official to have met CURVE BALL before Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The DOD detailee raised several concerns about CURVE BALL's reliability in an

electronic mail (e-mail) he wrote to the Deputy Chief of the CIA's

Iraqi WMD Task Force after reading a draft of Secretary Powell's speech to the U.N. The detailee noted that "I believe I am still the only [United States Government] USG person to have had direct access to him. There are a few issues associated with that contact that warrant further explanation, in my opinion, before using him as the backbone for the Iraqi mobile program." The detailee explained,

I do have a concern with the validity of the information based on "CURVE
BALL" having a terrible hangover the morning
I agree, it was only a

one time interaction, however, he knew he was to have a
on that
particular morning but tied one on anyway. What underlying issues could this be
a problem with and how in depth has he been

The DOD detailee also expressed concern in his e-mail that,

During the
request

?

meeting a couple of months ago when I was allowed to that "we/USG" wanted direct access to CURVE BALL,

that was not possible,

replied that in fact were having major handling issues with him and were attempting to determine, if in fact, CURVE BALL was who he said he was. These issues, in my opinion, warrant further inquiry, before we use the information as the backbone of one of our major findings of the existence of a continuing Iraqi BW program!

The detailee's e-mail was sent to the Deputy Chief of the

Iraqi WMD Task Force on February 4, one day before Secretary Powell delivered his speech. The detailee told Committee staff that prior to receiving a draft copy of Secretary Powell's speech he had "had many discussions with the analysts about my concerns with CURVE BALL as this whole thing was building up and taking on a life of its own. I was becoming frustrated, and when asked to go over Colin Powell's speech... and I went through the speech, and I thought, my gosh, we have got - I have got to go on record and make my concerns known. . . .

the

The detailee also told Committee staff that during his

of CURVE BALL, he had several opportunities to speak with who had responsibility for debriefing CURVE BALL.

The detailee observed that "... this is an opinion of mine and I really have nothing else to base it

on, but it was obvious to me that his case officer, for lack of better words, had fallen in love with his asset and the asset could do no wrong. I mean, the story was 100 percent correct as far as was concerned."

The INR BW analyst also told Committee staff that he was not aware that the detailee had concerns that CURVE BALL might have a drinking problem.

Because of Committee staff's concerns about the IC's reliance on a single source and questions about CURVE BALL's reporting, the Committee requested an IC assessment of CURVE BALL and his reliability. The DHS provided the Committee with an information paper on December 17, 2003 that stated "... the Iraqi design engineer [CURVE BALL] is not a biological weapons expert nor is he a life science expert. Source simply designed production facilities. He never claimed that the project he was involved in was used to produce biological agents." The DHS assessment also noted that "the source's reporting demonstrates a knowledge of and access to personalities, organizations, procurement, and technology related to Iraq's BW program." Concerned that the assessment had said the primary source behind the IC's assessments of the Iraqi mobile BW production program had "never claimed that the project he was involved in was used to produce biological agents," Committee staff asked DHS to clarify what appeared to be a serious discrepancy. The DHS was unable to respond to the request for several weeks, noting to Committee staff that the matter was being handled by the DCI's staff. The DHS then issued a correction to the Committee on January 15, 2003 that stated the information in the December 17, 2003 paper contained several errors and

"by virtue of his position, and as reflected in the published Intelligence Information Reports, the source demonstrated extensive knowledge of Iraq's BW program. As the project manager, he had intimate details of the mobile BW program." The author of the December 2003 DHS paper which stated that CURVE BALL "never claimed that the project he was involved in was used to produce biological agents" was the DHS intelligence officer who had primary responsibility

for collecting and reporting the intelligence from CURVE BALL's debriefings. In an interview with Committee staff, the DHS officer stated that in his haste to provide an assessment of the source to the Committee, he had misread some of the intelligence reports from the source.