Faulty Intel Warning

When the Chicago Tribune (my hometown very conservative paper) puts this type of news on the front page of the Sunday edition, you know there's not much wiggle room for the Bush Administration.

Germany Warned U.S. on Faulty Intel

According to the Germans, President Bush mischaracterized 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 Powell also misstated Curveball's claims in his prewar presentation to the United Nations, the Germans said.

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

The White House, for example, ignored evidence that UN weapons inspectors disproved virtually all of Curveball's accounts before the war. Bush and aides issued increasingly dire warnings about Iraq's germ weapons as the invasion neared, even though intelligence from Curveball had not changed.

The BND supervisor said he was aghast when he watched Powell misstate Curveball's information.

"We were shocked," the German official said. "Mein Gott! We had always told them it was not proven."

The rest of the article here.

One of the major reasons I supported the war from the very beginning was Colin Powell. I believed him and felt there was no way he would intentionally mislead the American public. I'm not sure where he falls on this anymore. He could've been part of the campaign or just a puppet. Regardless, with the growing pile of evidence before us, there is only one conclusion: We were lied into a war.