Statement of George J. Tenet, Former Director of Central Intelligence

This was an important contradiction that should have been surfaced immediately at CIA headquarters. It never happened. Given the careful attention we were giving the speech, we would have never allowed the Curveball data to be used by Secretary Powell with the full knowledge of what the foreign service representative allegedly told a CIA representative in September or October of 2002.

The Phone Call

My strong recollection is that I did not speak to the CIA division chief between 12 and 1 am in the early morning, as the report suggests, before Secretary Powell's speech. From approximately 11pm until 2am, I was at my command post in my hotel in New York with a senior analyst from the DCI's Counterterrorist Center reviewing the final text of Secretary Powell's speech regarding Iraq and terrorism. We initiated numerous phone calls to CIA's Operations Center in Langley Virginia seeking to contact Mr. Larry Wilkerson, Secretary Powell's Chief of Staff, who was staying at another hotel in New York. We were seeking to get a final version of the terrorism section for final review.

Earlier in the day, mid to late afternoon, while reviewing the Powell speech at USUN, I do recall being told that a different foreign government had not yet provided clearance for Secretary Powell to use some of its most important intelligence reporting. This reporting had nothing to do with the Iraqi mobile BW story.

I initiated a call to the CIA division chief in question in the late afternoon or early evening and well before Secretary Powell adjourned for the evening (around 8 pm) asking the division chief to have the senior representative of that foreign service in Washington call me immediately to provide the required clearance.

The representative returned my call promptly with the necessary clearance.

The phone call to the CIA division chief had nothing to do with the Iraqi mobile BW issue. I have absolutely no recollection of the division chief saying anything to me with regard to problems with the foreign reporting. In any case, that was not the context of my call.

Post Speech Events

It is equally important to review what happened after the Powell speech. At no time subsequent to Secretary Powell's presentation did anyone come forward in the analytic or operational chain of command to tell me that there serious problems regarding what Secretary Powell had to say regarding Iraq's mobile BW capability based on Curveball's reporting. The stunning information allegedly in our possession since late September or October of 2002 was never surfaced to me in the days, weeks, and months subsequent to Secretary Powell speech.

There could have been no doubt in anyone's mind regarding the weight attached to Curveball's reporting in Secretary Powell's speech to the world and yet nobody came forward to say there is a serious problem with Curveball or that we have been told by the foreign representative of the service handling him that there are worries that he is a "fabricator".

May 2003 White Paper

In April of 2003, U.S. forces found a mobile trailer that appeared initially to closely resemble the trailer Curveball told us he had worked on. The CIA and DIA put out a declassified White Paper on our judgments regarding the trailer on May 28, 2003 entitled "Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Production Plants" which received extensive media coverage.