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Curveball Debacle

Who and What isCurveball Debacle

Curveball was like a code name given to a Baghdad refugee in a German camp, Curveball was a chemical engineer who first appeared in German refugee camp in 1998 to 2000. For him to get his immigrant card, it forced him to work with Germany’s federal intelligence service known as the BND (Drogin, 2007). Curveball as a chemicalCurveball Debacle engineer, worked closely with the German intelligence where he provided them with detailed drawings claiming Saddam Hussein who was then Iraq president had built confidential germ factories in trucks and trains.

Before the war, US interrogators were desperately in need to question Curveball since they got some intelligence that Curveball was making weapons of mass destructions. Request by US interrogators to speak to curveball face to face fell in dead ears claiming that Curveball could not speak to Americans. In 2002, local CIA division chief met with German intelligence officer to arrange on how US interrogators could meet face to face with Curveball, but the CIA chiefs request was never granted. German intelligence officer claimed Curveball was mentally ill so there was no need to see him. On my opinion, the people to blame for this Curveball debacle would be the German intelligence officer who could not allow an interrogation session with Curveball. Secondly, George Tenet who was then the CIA chief and his deputy are also to blame on this, they got the alarming news from the division CIA chief but did nothing and even denied of receiving such information.

What’s the congress role in overseeing the US intelligence Community? In US intelligence community, duties are both shared between the executive and the legislative branches of government (Lowenthal, 2006). In this case, the congress has a role in supervising the intelligence communities to make them accountable for their decisions and actions. There’s always what we call congressional hearings, this is always held up when congress want to establish more transparent and effective operations between the executive and the legislature. This is done by summoning the senior officials of the executive branch to appear before the congress. Congress is also allowed to investigate all issues; example of congress investigations was the report by senate on pre-was intelligence on Iraq. The report written contained the findings, conclusions, discussions and recommendations.

References;
  • Drogin, B. (2007). Curveball: Spies, lies, and the conman who caused a war. New York random house.
  • Lowenthal, M. (2006). Intelligence from secret to policy

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