Curveball: Spies, Lies and the Con Man Who Caused a War
Bob Drogin, . . Random, $26.95 (343pp) ISBN 978-1-4000-6583-7
In 1999, an Iraqi refugee, soon code-named Curveball, told German intelligence agents of his work on an ongoing Iraqi program that produced biological weapons in mobile laboratories. His claims electrified the CIA, which had little good intelligence about Saddam Hussein's regime and was fixated on the threat of Iraqi WMDs, which later became a centerpiece in the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq. It was only after American occupation forces failed to find any mobile germ-warfare labs—or other WMDs—that prewar warnings about Curveball's heavy drinking and mental instability, and the nagging gaps and contradictions in his story, were taken seriously. In this engrossing account,
Reviewed on: 09/03/2007
Genre: Nonfiction