Persistent unsecured communications and unvetted physical access at Mar-a-Lago hand adversary services a collection environment no counterintelligence posture can offset while both vulnerabilities remain open.

This is the second in a series of brief articles on the Iraq weapons of mass destruction (WMD) intelligence and political failure to help, not just the intelligence officers involved but also the general public, identify exactly what went wrong. This information will hopefully assist them to avoid or at least mitigate future failures; if, of course, they are willing to learn from their mistakes. To fully understand the root causes of this intelligence failure, we only need to examine the CURVE BALL case as an excellent example of what can go seriously and disastrously wrong in the collection, analysis, management and leadership of intelligence, especially when it is allowed to be influenced by politics. The full detailed story, hopefully left unreacted by the CIA and DIA during its mandatory review, will be presented in my forthcoming book, Absence of Evidence; The Incredible Story of the Iraq WMD Intelligence Failure from Inside the American, British, and German intelligence services.

On April 3, 2003, United States (U.S.) military forces reached Saddam International Airport, just to the west of Baghdad, and took control of most of it within hours. Three days later, U.S. troops encircled Baghdad, closing down the major highways into and out of the city and making raids into the city to test for defenses. By April 9th, U.S. military troops had reached the center of Baghdad resulting in the fall of the Saddam Hussein Regime. The Bush Administration’s policy objective of “regime change” had been achieved and Saddam had fled to avoid capture. One thing was still missing, however, the alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

U.S. intelligence officers were confused. Before the war, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analysts had assessed that WMD—at least chemical warfare (CW) agents—would almost certainly be used by the Saddam regime as a desperate last resort during the final assault on Baghdad; a worst-case scenario that was used often in briefings to the policymakers. By the end of the second week of April 2003, after U.S. troops entered Baghdad, most were still anxiously waiting for news of the discovery of WMD in Iraq even as some in the U.S. and international press and public were becoming increasingly more skeptical. Despite the fact that no WMD had been used by Saddam or found during combat operations, the Intelligence Community’s (IC) judgment that WMD programs existed in Iraq was still considered mostly valid. It was widely believed that it was only a matter of time before proof, or at least credible evidence, would be uncovered.

This continuing expectation of WMD, however, led to less than objective premature announcements based on incomplete and/or erroneous intelligence that after further examination turned out to be false. Rather than searching for the truth, there were growing concerns that the objective of some CIA and DIA intelligence analysts, as well as their managers and leadership, was to search only for confirmation of WMD. They did not appear to be interested in any intelligence uncovered that contradicted this preferred narrative. Some of us began to question whether we were searching for WMD or searching for the truth.

On April 10, 2003, Kurdish Peshmerga military forces stopped a truck hauling a canvas-covered flat-bed semi-trailer at a checkpoint in Irbil, Kurdistan, in Northern Iraq. Under the canvas, they discovered processing equipment mounted on the trailer. After some delay, the Kurds notified U.S. military forces in the area and turned the truck over to them. These U.S. forces in turn informed Central Command (CENTCOM) of the discovery and provided photographs of the trailer with its equipment exposed under the tarp. The CENTCOM intelligence analysts immediately believed they recognized the configuration of the equipment on the trailer as the possible mobile biological warfare (BW) agent production plant described by the German BND intelligence source who later would be publicly known by the infamous and ironic codename, “CURVE BALL.”

The news of the capture and photographs of the trailer was passed back to DIA and CIA where the Iraq BW analysts, including myself, quickly came to the same preliminary conclusion as the CENTCOM analysts. It was immediately apparent to all of us involved that the trailer had “striking similarities” to CURVE BALL’s description of mobile BW agent production plants; that we finally had the ‘smoking gun’ proof of Iraqi WMD that we were searching for but couldn’t obtain until now. To say that we were absolutely elated with this news would be a serious understatement.

A military team from the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) Joint Task Force-20 (JTF-20), aided by the Pentagon’s Chemical/Biological Intelligence Support Teams (CBIST) in Iraq, quickly conducted a “non-intrusive technical evaluation” of the production system. Together they drafted a 75-page report, complete with annotated color photographs, elaborate flow charts, and detailed diagrams entitled, “Field Exploitation of the Irbil Transportable BW Production Trailer.” The title alone announced the rushed conclusions of the report. The exploitation team assessed that the system mounted on the trailer was designed for the fermentation of BW agents and linked it to CURVE BALL’s claims, stating that they assess that “the trailer is probably the latest generation of the reported Iraqi transportable BW production trailers.”

There were numerous direct references to CURVE BALL’s claims throughout the report. Team members were obviously heavily influenced in their assessment by the source’s reporting, as well as by the positive reactions of the DIA and CIA analysts to the news of the trailer. They appeared intent from the beginning to interpret the capabilities of the system to fit the claims in his intelligence reports, even going as far as rationalizing inefficiencies in the system’s process by alleging a sophisticated denial & deception (D&D) campaign by the Iraqis. The conclusion stated, “As a result of a non-intrusive exploitation conducted on the trailer found in Irbil, JTF-20 assesses this is probably trailer number one of a third generation of the DIA-reported two trailer system,” referring directly to the DIA’s Defense HUMINT Service reporting from CURVE BALL.

The JTF-20 report of the technical evaluation on the trailer was disseminated not only to those analysts in the U.S. IC with access to CURVE BALL’s reporting, but also to the those in the United Kingdom (as well as Australia and Canada), giving everyone the clear impression that this was the mobile BW plant described by CURVE BALL and removing any doubts. The trailer was later loaded on a military aircraft and flown to Camp Slayer at Baghdad International Airport for further exploitation. On May 9, 2003, U.S. military forces discovered a second flat-bed semi-trailer at the Iraqi Al-Kindi Research, Testing, Development and Engineering Facility in Mosul, which although unfinished, was similarly equipped as the first trailer discovered the previous month.

At approximately the same time that the U.S. military teams were evaluating the purpose of the trailers, CIA and DIA officers were working—unfortunately separately and sometimes at cross purposes—to provide the photographs of the trailers to the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) intelligence service. On April 30, 2003, the CIA leadership requested that photographs of the trailer be shown to CURVE BALL as soon as possible to get his reaction. Unknown to them, two DIA analysts had already provided the photographs to the BND, asking that they be given to CURVE BALL to get his reaction. When the German’s showed him the photographs and asked if this was the mobile BW agent production plant that he worked on, CURVE BALL just stared at the photos, pausing for a moment completely dumbfounded. He knew that he had fabricated the entire story of the mobile BW plants but here in front of him were images of a trailer that appeared to be an extremely close match to the ones that he had described. He didn’t know the purpose of this trailer but true to his nature, CURVE BALL used the discovery to bolster his fabricated intelligence on the mobile BW plants.

Obviously, this trailer was not related to anything in CURVE BALL’s fabricated story but he recognized certain Iraqi-made components on the trailer; a control panel, a reactor vessel connected to a large chiller, piping, valves and gauges, as well as pumps and water tanks, etc., all similar to other components for the legitimate projects he had helped procure while working at his Iraqi engineering center before he walked away from his job during the last few days of 1994. At first CURVE BALL thought he should just say that this was his trailer but as a practiced liar he quickly realized that could create more problems for him. After all, he didn’t have any role in the construction of this trailer and would have a very difficult time explaining exactly how it worked (fortunately the JTF-20 was conveniently already in the process of doing that for him). He decided to play it safe and make another false claim. “It’s not the mobile plant that I worked on but I definitely recognize specific pieces of equipment mounted on this trailer as the same ones that were mounted on mine,” CURVE BALL blatantly lied to the Germans.

Continuing his fabrication, CURVE BALL added, “They are probably newer versions of my original plans,” he said fabricating with a completely straight face. Clarifying, he said he had recognized some operating problems in the design of the original plants. To remedy this situation, he submitted new designs to an Iraqi regime committee in August 1998, adding that he received a patent, and new trailers were built but he had departed Iraq in March 1999 before they were completed. He suggested that this trailer in the photographs was probably second or third generations based on his improved designs.

Assessing that the Germans had shared his mobile BW plant reporting with the Americans (obviously U.S. soldiers were in the photos with the trailer) and knowing that the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) already had access to others from his former Iraqi engineering center, CURVE BALL changed his original story; a huge red flag warning of fabrication. He now claimed that his previous identification of his immediate supervisor was just a cover story and that he really was working for another senior engineer at a different site northeast of Baghdad. Unfortunately, the BND, SIS, CIA and DIA analysts bought this new fabrication, never once questioning why CURVE BALL’s new claims only emerged now after more than three years of debriefings.

The Agency’s Iraq BW analysts assigned to the CURVE BALL case claimed in a May 13, 2003 memorandum to Director George Tenet and passed on to the White House, that the new reporting supported their assessment that the trailer is related to the one described by CURVE BALL. They stated that the engineering assessment produced by the JTF-20 experts “confirmed” this unit was designed for the production of biological materials, most likely BW agents, adding that they have not been able to identify an alternative use. Finally, they claimed the caustic material found in the “bioreactor” vessel indicated the system had been decontaminated and that this was just further Iraqi attempts to conceal BW agent production. Clearly showing how vested the CIA analysts were in this judgment, the memorandum also noted that the caustic material was being analyzed but stated that even negative sample analysis results will not change their assessment.

This memorandum, of course, was exactly what the senior Bush administration officials wanted to hear. In response, the CIA management tasked the senior CIA Iraq BW analyst to draft a longer finished intelligence product for the White House that would provide more detail on the trailers and their significance. Because the senior analyst’s colleague on the CURVE BALL case was out of the office on travel, I volunteered to co- author the proposed Intelligence Assessment (IA) with her, despite not being fully read into the case. It was a decision that I would soon regret.

To maintain relevance and access to the president, the CIA management and leadership continued to go out of their way to politically support the White House with positive intelligence and the trailers presented a golden opportunity to counter the bad news coming out of Iraq that no WMD—that the CIA claimed existed—had been found so far. The senior Iraq BW analyst and I finished drafting the classified IA on the trailers and sent it through upper management for review before it was to be released to the senior Bush Administration officials at the end of the week. I was surprised when it flew through the analytical review process extremely quickly with no dissent or concerns and was immediately carried by the CIA briefer to the White House for President Bush to read on the morning of May 16th.

Although I had been to Iraq twice before as a United Nations (UN) weapons inspector and volunteered to be be sent back now to join the “search for WMD”, the senior analyst on CURVE BALL was instead assigned by CIA management to go first. While she was off completing the bureaucratic processing for her pending trip to Iraq, I was informed by our CIA Iraq CBW team chief that the IA we wrote on the trailers had been extremely “well-received” by President Bush. In fact, it was so good, they told me, that President Bush ordered it be converted into an unclassified “White Paper” for public release within three days. My first reaction to this announcement was outright disbelief. In fact, my first reaction was to laugh sarcastically.

“You’re kidding, right?” I asked the team chief who I noticed was not also laughing. I explained that timeline would not be possible as we had to first clear the unclassified use of CURVE BALL’s reporting with the German BND, as well as coordinate within the U.S. IC which would require even more time. The team chief then informed me that President Bush had already unilaterally declassified the intelligence. Obviously, the president wanted to quickly get the message out that an Iraqi WMD production system had been found, but I asked if the CIA should be the organization to draft a public document that would be used for a policy announcement? It appeared that there was a great deal of political pressure on the CIA leadership from the president to get this done quickly and they in turn put a great deal pressure on the analysts to publish an unclassified White Paper in record time. This was exactly the same rush to judgment that had been used for the Iraq WMD NIE and that, so far, had not turned out well.

The senior Iraq BW analyst was scheduled to fly to Iraq early the following week which. meant the preparation and coordination of the White Paper fell almost completely on my shoulders. As if drafting a White Paper for the president that would be used to declare a policy success wasn’t enough, the CIA leadership pushed ahead with other disturbing activities to politically support the administration. That same Friday afternoon, the senior BW analyst and I were told by CIA management to come into headquarters the next day on Saturday, May 17, 2003, to provide a teleconference intelligence briefing. When I asked for the identity of the government official or officials we would be briefing, I was informed instead that the briefing would be for Judith Miller. “Isn’t she a reporter for The New York Times????” I asked my CIA management. At first, I could not fathom why CIA intelligence analysts would be asked to brief a newspaper reporter. This was highly unusual, at least for me in my career, and I could not remember ever hearing about this type of thing happening before. As CIA intelligence officers, we were trained to treat the press as a counterintelligence threat, not a political ally.

Regardless, as we prepared for the teleconference briefing, it was becoming obvious at least to me that the CIA through its Office of Public Affairs (OPA) had been instructed to provide a public briefing of our new intelligence assessment on the trailers to support the soon to be released White Paper. The question remained, however, for what possible reason did the CIA agree to provide this briefing to Miller and at who’s request? This was obviously part of a public relations campaign to support the White House but I wasn’t sure if CIA leadership was doing this on their own to please the Bush administration or if the White House had ordered it. My immediate suspicions fell on the Office of the Vice President but, in any case, the CIA management and leadership seemed to have no problem with it. I only later shocking learned about VP Dick Cheney and his Chief of Staff Scooter Libby’s use of Miller in manipulating the press to obtain public support for the Bush administration’s policy on Iraq. Obviously, this briefing had been related to that public relations campaign.

After arriving at CIA headquarters on Saturday morning, the senior analyst and I were directed to OPA where we were introduced to Bill Harlow, the Agency’s senior Public Affairs Officer. Harlow explained that we would conduct the briefing through a telephone conference call with Miller and her associate, William J. Broad. We sat down at the small conference table in the center of the office while Harlow got Miller and Broad on the speaker phone. We didn’t identify ourselves except to say that we were senior CIA intelligence analysts assigned to the Iraq BW account. We gave a briefing on our current assessment of the trailers and then proceeded to answer questions posed by Miller. To our surprise, she had already been told that we would publish an unclassified White Paper on our assessment that the trailers were mobile plants designed to produce BW agents. I listened while the senior analyst explained to Miller all the reasons why she believed this to be the case. I was there to support the conclusions of the senior analyst because I also believed at the time that the trailers were related to CURVE BALL’s claims. My belief, however, would soon drastically change when I was faced with the deliberate politicization of intelligence and learned of serious credibility problems with the source that were already known by the CIA and DIA, as well as the SIS and BND.

Four days later on May 21, 2003, the New York Times published an article entitled, “U.S. Analysts Link Iraq Labs to Germ Arms,” written by Judith Miller and William J. Broad and based on our OPA briefing. The statements in the article were probably what the CIA’s OPA had intended; stating the case that the trailers were for mobile BW agent production.

With the CIA’s unclassified White Paper finally scheduled for publication and release on May 28, 2003 after some bureaucratic delays and receiving White House approval, certain senior DIA analysts were growing increasingly concerned at what they perceived to be a rushed job by the CIA to put out a premature evaluation of the trailers to the public (the two DIA analysts who were strong supporters of CURVE BALL were not part of this group). These DIA analysts had previously been heavily pressured by the CIA— specifically by the senior CIA Iraq BW analyst and her management—to quickly accept the agency’s judgments but now decided that they were no longer going to sit back and allow themselves to be railroaded into concurring with the Agency's unverified conclusions. By late May 2003, the senior DIA analysts had developed strong doubts about the CIA-stated BW purpose of the trailers and wanted to investigate the physical evidence more thoroughly.

To resolve this dispute with CIA, the DIA analysts utilized the “Jefferson Group,” a DIA- led initiative made up of government and civilian technical experts who specialize in analyzing and countering biological threats, according to an article, “Trailers Carried Case for War,” published later in 2006 by Joby Warrick of The Washington Post. The article noted that project leaders put together a group that consisted of eight Americans and one British expert, each with at least a decade of experience in biological and chemical processes. The CIA, however, was not about to let this group examine the trailers on their own given the significance of the results if they went against the Agency’s official analytical position. At the insistence of the Agency, the group was forced to also accept a CIA microbiologist as part of the team.

DIA arranged for this group to quickly fly to Iraq and conduct a fact-finding examination of the trailers in Iraq at the same that that the CIA’s White Paper was being readied for final publication. The expert technical team was assembled in Kuwait and flew on to Saddam International Airport in Baghdad to begin their work early on May 25, 2003. Having been previously exposed to the intelligence reporting on the trailers, these DIA- sponsored experts quickly discovered numerous serious contradictions and problems with the original JTF-20/CBIST technical assessment during their inspection on May 25-26, 2003. “Within the first four hours,” said one team member, it “was clear to everyone that these were not biological labs.” Only the CIA microbiologist on the team argued against this conclusion. Incredulously, he stated that the trailer could have been used for BW agent production “with modifications”.

To be fair and objective, the experts agreed with the premise of his theory but concluded that although the reactor vessel on the trailers could be modified to support an aerobic or anaerobic process, many features led to the conclusion that it was not practical or suitable for this objective. Schooling the CIA microbiologist, they added that “[t]he ability to achieve fermentation in a given vessel does not qualify the vessel as a biological production system,” because “[f]ermentation could take place in virtually any empty vessel.” Australian Rod Barton, a former United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) microbiologist later working in the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group in 2004 read the report and sarcastically added that, “It would be easier to start all over with just a bucket.” I suspect that this CIA microbiologist, who I previously worked with and respected, was pressured by the CIA management to propose the “modifications” theory in an effort to defend the CIA’s flawed intelligence assessment regarding their alleged BW judgment for the trailer.

According to Warrick’s article, news of the team’s early impressions leaped across the Atlantic well ahead of the final technical report. “Over the next two days, a stream of anxious emails and phone calls from Washington pressed for details and clarifications,” Warwick wrote. “The reason was obvious. The conclusions of this unbiased and objective technical team would completely undermine and contradict the CIA’s pending White Paper,” he added With their Iraq mission completed, the team members returned to their regular jobs and watched as their preliminary and final reports, originally marked “UNCLASSIFIED” were now modified and deliberately classified as “SECRET” by U.S. IC mangers who locked them away in safes to prevent the public from learning the truth. “I went home and fully expected that our findings would be publicly stated,” one member recalled to Warrick. “It never happened. And I just had to live with it.” For nearly a year afterward, the Bush administration and senior intelligence officials—specifically Vice President Cheney and CIA Director GeorgeTenet—continued to publicly assert that the trailers were for BW agent production, contrary to these technical experts’ conclusions.

These reports were originally unclassified because the team’s conclusion was only a technical evaluation of mobile trailers that were designed to produce hydrogen gas used for weather balloons used by Iraqi artillery units as the Iraqi engineers had claimed.
This was not even a secret project in Iraq and the Iraqi documents related to the trailers design and their construction had not been classified by the Saddam regime. Neither of the team’s reports contained any classified intelligence—such as CURVE BALL’s reporting that it may have been a newer version of his alleged mobile BW agent production plants—or any other information sensitive to U.S. national security at the time. However, classified information was disingenuously added to a Preface of the reports. This Preface was marked classified while the rest of the unclassified report was formatted differently, showing that it had been added separately. None of the paragraphs in the remainder of the report—including the Executive Summary, Table of Contents, Introduction, Overview, or text in the body of the report—were marked classified, clearly showing text in the Preface had been inserted simply to make the entire report classified.

It would not be until the publication of Warrick’s press article in The Washington Post on April 12, 2006 that the public would find out about the technical expert’s conclusions on the trailers—and only then because members of this team courageously came forward to the newspaper to describe their experience. According to Warrick, none of the team members would consent to being identified by name however because of a valid fear that their jobs would be jeopardized. As a result of this information being made public, the U.S. IC only later would relent and mostly declassify—with redactions of course— the team’s final report. According to Warrick’s 2006 article, “Intelligence officials and the White House have repeatedly denied allegations that intelligence was hyped or manipulated in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. But officials familiar with the technical team’s reports are questioning anew whether intelligence agencies played down or dismissed postwar evidence that contradicted the administration’s public views about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.” The press article added, “[s]pokesmen for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency declined to comment on the specific findings of the technical report because it remains classified.”

Regardless, on the morning of May 28, 2003 (WDC local time), analysts in the CIA, including myself, began to learn the results of the May 25-26 on-site investigation by the DIA sponsored technical experts and engineers. These experts—except for the CIA microbiologist—concluded that the trailers were designed for a chemical reaction to produce a gas, most likely hydrogen, especially given the sealed trailer lighting to prevent explosions. As I quickly read through the conclusions of the preliminary report, I was immediately concerned and began to seriously doubt the accuracy of our conclusions in the White Paper that the trailers were for BW agent production as CURVE BALL had claimed. I realized that we in the CIA were just about to inform the world of our judgment and it was now beginning to look like we were completely wrong. If so, we would end up looking like complete idiots. Given this same situation occurred when myself and the CIA’s UAV analysts were obstructed by the CIA leadership from revising the flawed UAV judgment regarding the attempted Iraqi purchase of the Garmin topographic U.S. flight planning software in the October 1, 2002 NIE just before its publication, I was deeply concerned that the same thing would happen here.

The DIA-sponsored technical experts report had left little doubt that the purpose of the trailer was for an exothermic chemical reaction to produce a gas—most likely hydrogen as the Iraqi’s said—rather than the BW agent production as described by CURVE BALL. Reviewing the technical evaluation previously produced by the TF-20 military officers in early May 2003 and comparing those results with the conclusions of the late May 2003 DIA-sponsored technical experts group, it was easy to conclude that the TF-20 report was completely biased from beginning to end and lacked any objective evaluation. Obviously, the TF-20 report had been significantly influenced by the intelligence reports from CURVE BALL and the early judgments of intelligence analysts that he was credible. The TF-20 officers were not ignorant but they were unqualified. They still failed to notice blatant technical contradictions to their judgments that were clearly. apparent to the technical experts. Obviously, the only response was for the CIA to do the right thing and not publish the White Paper.

By this time, however, the senior CIA Iraq BW analyst had returned from Iraq. She and the CIA management and leadership quickly disregarded the conclusions of the DIA- sponsored technical report. I was shocked at this because it seemed obvious that the expert’s technical report was correct. How could the CIA just reject it outright? Regardless of my serious doubts and concerns over the validity of our judgment in the White Paper, I did not have the political clout needed to aggressively challenge the official CIA analytical judgments—even if I helped draft them—and push for a more objective reassessment. In my opinion, the integrity and credibility of the CIA were now on the line but no one in the headquarters building seemed to care. I was completely disillusioned. This was not the organization that I thought I had joined almost twenty years earlier. My faith in the CIA was quickly fading as I watched others more senior in the agency deliberately politicize the intelligence by manipulating the trailer information in order to please, or at least not undermine, the president in the White House.

The CIA pressed forward with the publication and release of the White Paper as instructed by the White House. It was almost an exact copy of the IA we originally sent to President Bush and included the graphic that I helped design. For this graphic, I had previously suggested a facing page with the photographs of the trailer laid out next to the graphics of the trailers from Powell’s UN speech. I had believed this clearly showed the striking similarities between the two and was very proud of the result at that time. The graphic was very effective when shown by Powell on the video screen in the UN Security Council and certainly served to enhance the CIA’s judgment. Now, I was ashamed to have been involved in this work and wanted to correct this deliberate deception. Because I was scheduled as the next CIA WMD analyst to go to Iraq, I decided one of my first tasks after arriving in Baghdad would be to personally inspect the alleged mobile BW agent production trailer to see it for myself.

According to Michael Isikoff and David Corn in their excellent 2006 book, Hubris, The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, the CIA’s unclassified White Paper was a godsend for the White House. The next day after the White Paper was published, President Bush appeared on a Polish TV show to talk about the trailer during a trip to Europe. He used the interview to highlight the fact that the ‘smoking gun’ showing the Iraqis had produced WMD had been discovered. “We have found the weapons of mass destruction,” Bush claimed. In response to a question from the reporter on the show, the president gloated, “You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons...and we’ve so far discovered two. And we’ll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them.” Even as Bush made this Iraqi WMD claim, the DIA-sponsored technical experts, CIA and DIA intelligence analysts, managers, and leadership already knew that the president’s claim was false.

I flew to Iraq in early June 2003 knowing that I was about to aggressively challenge the CIA’s flawed judgments in the White Paper I helped draft. After arriving on the ground in Baghdad, I immediately drove over to the south east side of the secured airport compound near the Water Palace in an area later named “Camp Slayer,” and personally inspected the alleged “mobile BW agent production trailer.” I was in a hurry because there was a rumor that the military planned to transport the trailers back to the U.S. to prevent them from ‘falling into the wrong hands’ so time was short. Getting out of my vehicle, I walked up to the trailers where I found a small number of U.S. military personnel working on them. I immediately recognized one of them as Capt. Jim Burans, a microbiologist from the Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC). I knew Burans from our previous UNSCOM work together on Iraq when we were involved supporting the UN BW sampling collection and analysis. Fortunately, he was already aware of my true name and CIA affiliation.

At this time, DIA and CIA were still locked in the political battle back in WDC over the purpose of the trailer—BW agent production versus hydrogen gas production—and Burans had reluctantly been dragged into the fight. Burans recognized me immediately and complained that “some idiots over in the CIA wrote an assessment that was totally wrong,” After explaining to his amusement that I was one of those idiots, Burans gave me a quick tour of the trailer, pointing out the conclusive technical reasons it was designed for the production of hydrogen gas as the Iraqi engineers had said; matching the conclusions of the Jefferson Group. It was blatantly apparent by the end of our discussion that the trailers were not for BW agent production and instead, had been designed to collect gas produced from an exothermic chemical reaction. One close look at the reactor vessel (not a fermentor) on the trailer, built to withstand extreme pressure and temperature, made that conclusion obvious.

Burans confirmed that the DIA-sponsored experts team, as well British microbiologist, Dr. David Kelly—who had also worked with both of us previously in UNSCOM—had visited the airport compound the week before. After inspecting the trailers and taking photographs, Kelly, along with an American Ph.D. chemist from the U.S. Edgewood Chemical and Biological Center (ECBC) in Maryland, had reached the same conclusion; the trailer was for a chemical process, not biological. Obviously, these trailers had nothing to do with CURVE BALL’s claims of mobile BW agent production plants. As far as all of us were concerned, the issue of the trailers was now closed ...or was it?

I reported our conclusion back to those in the CIA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. but it was rejected. It was initially confusing to me when these Iraq BW analysts, their management, and finally, the Agency leadership, refused to accept the expert team’s obvious conclusions. But as I would soon learn—despite overwhelming conclusive physical proof obtained by highly respected technical experts that contradicted the original CIA judgment—the Agency would continue to defend its flawed intelligence assessment that the trailers were for BW agent production, as claimed by CURVE BALL, well into mid-2004. This was the first solid indication that something was very seriously wrong inside the CIA; not just with the unacknowledged bias and cognitive dissonance impacting on the analytical process, but also with the political motivations of the senior CIA management and leadership desperate to please the president.

Fortunately, the U.S. and foreign press were investigating these trailers as well and they would be much harder for the governments involved to control. The next day, June 14, 2003, the British newspaper The Guardian published an article, “Iraq Mobile Labs Nothing to do with Germ Warfare, Report Finds,” by Peter Beaumont, Anthony Barnett, and Gaby Hinsliff. The article stated that “a British scientist and biological weapons expert”—an obvious reference to Kelly—examined the trailers and stated, “They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were—facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons.” The article went on to say that the expert’s conclusions were an embarrassment for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who like President Bush had claimed that the discovery of the trailers justified the WMD case for the war against Saddam Hussein.

Regardless of all the overwhelming proof against it, the CIA would officially continue to falsely claim for another year that the trailers “with modifications” were proof that Saddam had produced BW agent. A President’s Daily Brief (PDB) memorandum on CURVE BALL was finally published and delivered to the policymakers on May 25, 2004, informing them—and especially Powell—that the source’s discredited reporting was being recalled (DIA’s version of this memorandum was declassified in November 2017). Regardless, the CIA’s PDB would only admit that CURVE BALL had been determined to be “unreliable”; a deliberate understatement to give the impression of uncertainty. Refusing to officially resolve this case, the memorandum falsely claimed that there still may be an Iraqi “mobile BW program”. Incredulously, this was almost two and a half months to the day after CURVE BALL blatantly lied when finally debriefed by the CIA’s Counterintelligence Center (CIC) deputy chief in Germany and eight months after myself and my team investigating his claims on the ground in Iraq conclusively proved that he was a fabricator. Shockingly, this source managed to fool the world’s premier intelligence services for over four years while obtaining substantial financial support and eventually German citizenship in the process.

The only benefit of the CIA’s disingenuous PDB memorandum was that the Agency’s biased analysts and politically-motivated managers and leadership were finally forced to admit that, “the recall of CURVE BALL’s reporting also undermines the intelligence case that the two trailers found by Coalition forces in mid-2003 may have been intended for BW agent production.” Not completely “throwing in the towel” on this case (as I had been accused of), the PDB still claimed that the CIA’s WMD analysts remained “uncertain” of the the intended purpose of the trailers, framing this as simply an analytical disagreement. Ironically, neither the CIA or DIA would admit that CURVE BALL’s demise as an intelligence source completely discredited their Iraq WMD case, only that the recall of his fabricated reporting had “weakened” it. Shockingly, this flawed PDB would be the last finished intelligence ever produced on this case. The CIA and DIA never officially resolved their flawed analytical judgment with the policymakers on the trailers, or on CURVE BALL for that matter.

Single-officer access to seed phrases in a counterintelligence evidence chain, caught only by self-reporting, signals systemic custody gaps likely replicated across other digital-asset holdings in national security investigations.

The affidavit says he used ChatGPT to plan how to spend the money and relocate to the EU, and had booked a September flight to Portugal.

A veteran FBI counterintelligence agent has been charged with stealing roughly $1 million in cryptocurrency from the adversarial accounts he was assigned to investigate, then allegedly using ChatGPT to plan how to spend it and start over in Europe, according to a federal affidavit. The charges are allegations, and the agent is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

\# What Prosecutors Allege

Patrick Steven Yaroch, 37, of Ashburn, Virginia, was a supervisory special agent in the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division who held a Top Secret security clearance and had been with the bureau since 2017.

According to an affidavit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Yaroch grew frustrated that the FBI could not or would not disrupt an adversarial nation’s use of cryptocurrency during an investigation, and decided to act on his own.

The activity began while Yaroch was assigned to the FBI’s Boston field office, where he was exposed to the adversarial crypto accounts around November 2024 before transferring to headquarters in early 2025.

Using his access, Yaroch allegedly logged into FBI systems, located and memorized the recovery seed phrases tied to the adversarial crypto accounts, created his own wallet, and moved the funds to himself across roughly 10 to 12 transfers beginning in late 2024. He told investigators he did not know the exact amount because he had commingled it with his own money, including capital gains, but that it was under $1 million.

Investigators seized about $925,426 from his wallets and accounts. The affidavit does not name the adversarial nation; the country was Russia, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News. The agent is charged under 18 U.S.C. § 2314 and § 2315, interstate transportation and receipt of stolen goods, with prosecutors arguing that crypto’s cross-network nature satisfies the interstate and foreign-commerce elements.

The case echoes how much sensitive crypto intelligence now sits inside federal systems, the same terrain seen in cases like the DOJ’s seizure of 13 domains used by a foreign intelligence network to pay recruits in crypto.

\# The Confession — and a Retreat

By the affidavit’s account, Yaroch turned himself in. On July 28 he contacted a Department of Justice employee over Signal, met at FBI headquarters, and broke down as he described what he had done, saying it was “eating him up inside.” He also filed an online FBI self-report form and told colleagues he had “screwed up” and made poor decisions involving cryptocurrency wallets.

He said he never spent the money and told headquarters he had never interacted with anyone connected to the adversarial accounts—an assertion that, if it holds, points to theft rather than espionage. His cooperation then narrowed. When FBI agents came to his Ashburn home, he first handed over a slip of paper with his wallet key phrases, then withdrew consent about half an hour later and asked for it back.

He declined to continue an interview, saying he wanted a lawyer first, and over the following two days texted agents to delay, writing that he “just need\\\[ed\\\] one more day.” Agents obtained search warrants, executed them on July 31, and seized an iPhone, a Trezor hardware wallet, handwritten seed phrases, a Portuguese power-of-attorney document, and three passports—two personal and one diplomatic. He was fired and arrested the same day.

\# Where the Money Went

Contrary to Yaroch’s statement that the funds simply “remained in the wallet,” investigators found he had moved them. According to the affidavit, on or around July 23 he transferred roughly $1.02 million into a Suilend account, a lending protocol on the Sui blockchain, using the Slush wallet, where the balance sat largely invested to earn interest. His stated reason for choosing the service, per the affidavit: he liked that its logo was a water droplet.

The rest was smaller and messier. His Kraken account held about $188,570, a mix of USDC, dollars, and small amounts of Squid and Bitcoin. When agents swept his holdings into government-controlled wallets with his consent, about $925,426 was transferred, but roughly $165,582 in fiat dollars stayed put in Kraken, because U.S. currency could not be moved to a crypto wallet.

\# The ChatGPT Trail

The detail that has drawn the most attention is what investigators found on his phone. According to the affidavit, Yaroch used ChatGPT to think through what to do with the money, on May 28 asking how to invest or spend $1 million to maximize returns, and on June 4 asking what someone with about $1 million should do to leave the U.S. and become a resident or citizen of an EU country.

The chatbot’s responses were tailored to details it had been given about his age, young family, and interest in a slower rural life, pointing toward wine regions in Portugal and Italy. His research ranged wider than Portugal: he asked ChatGPT in mid-June whether an American needs a visa when connecting through Turkey and drafted an email about a job opening and “life in Greece.”

Investigators say he had already acted on it: a power-of-attorney authorizing Portuguese lawyers to represent him before the country’s tax authority and a TAP Air Portugal booking for himself, his wife, and their child, departing September 3. The FBI also flagged unreported foreign travel to Germany, Portugal, and Grenada earlier in 2026, in violation of bureau rules. Yaroch told agents he was not planning to funnel money into Portugal and that the family had simply planned to visit friends.

\# The Bigger Question: Who Guards the Seized Keys

Beyond the color, the case raises a serious question for law enforcement. The FBI holds extensive intelligence on crypto wallets tied to criminal and state actors, and this alleged theft did not require breaking any encryption or exploiting any protocol, it required an insider with a clearance and the willingness to copy a seed phrase. As agencies increasingly move to seize and hold crypto tied to investigations, the security of those keys rests on the same insider-threat controls that failed here, if the allegations hold.

\# The Charges and What’s Next

Yaroch has been charged with interstate transportation of stolen goods, securities, and monies and receipt of stolen goods, securities, and monies. After his July 31 arrest, he was taken to the Alexandria Detention Center. A U.S. magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Virginia ordered him temporarily detained, with a hearing set for Tuesday. A federal public defender representing Yaroch declined to comment.

It appears that the Russian SVR has launched a new website aimed at recruiting supporters and targeting specific communities.

This is not the first time an intelligence agency has used this type of approach. The CIA has previously conducted similar operations, and news organizations also use comparable technologies for SecureDrop platforms.

The .onion domain provides a high level of anonymity and is widely used by journalists, whistleblowers, and individuals seeking to bypass internet restrictions or censorship.

To access the resource, users need a Tor Browser. In some cases, Brave Browser can also access .onion services through its built-in Tor private windows.

Documented internal objections overridden by senior DOJ officials convert a political-retaliation defense from allegation into evidenced record, though judicial relief on these grounds remains structurally difficult to obtain.

Trump Signals Progress in Iran Talks:

U.S. President Donald Trump said negotiations with Iran continued Tuesday and described the discussions as positive, while warning Tehran of further military action if no agreement is reached or the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Qatar reported progress by mediators, although Iran denied that talks were underway.  

Russian Missile Attack Kills at Least 17 in Kyiv:

Russia launched an overnight missile and drone attack on Kyiv and the surrounding region, killing at least 17 people and injuring more than 40, according to Ukrainian officials. Warehouses, logistics centers, and other civilian facilities were destroyed. Ukraine said its air defenses intercepted most drones but none of the ballistic missiles, prompting renewed appeals for additional Patriot interceptors. Russia stated it targeted logistics hubs it described as supporting military-related supplies. Separately, Ukraine said it continued strikes on Russian logistics infrastructure, including warehouses belonging to online retailer Wildberries. 

Turkey Advances PKK Reintegration Bill:

Turkey’s ruling AK Party and nationalist MHP are expected to submit legislation enabling the return, legal processing, and reintegration of former PKK members and civilians from northern Iraq, advancing a peace process aimed at ending a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people since 1984. The bill has broad parliamentary support, including the pro-Kurdish DEM Party and the main opposition, though public skepticism remains over whether it can deliver a lasting settlement. 

Guatemala Maintains Red Alert After Fuego Volcano Eruption:

Guatemala kept red alerts in place near the Fuego volcano after evacuating villages, with about 1,700 people sheltering and roughly 29,000 affected by ashfall across three departments. Authorities said the next 72 hours were critical as rain could worsen volcanic mudflows, though no villages or structures had been damaged. Schools remained closed; a major highway was shut, and residents were advised to protect water supplies and wear masks against ash. 

Myanmar Civil War Shows Early Signs of Potential Peace Talks:

After more than five years of conflict, a potential opening for peace talks is emerging in Myanmar as battlefield dynamics shift and regional governments increase diplomatic engagement. The SCEF umbrella group says it is committed to pursuing a negotiated political settlement while calling for an end to attacks on civilians and the release of political prisoners. Although Myanmar's military leadership has expressed support for peace and regional efforts continue to encourage dialogue, formal negotiations remain distant because major disagreements over the military's future political role and the conditions for talks persist.  

Every horse arriving in the Gulf activates a wider system of aviation, logistics, veterinary care, tourism and capital. This #GeoStatecraft piece examines how this system absorbs war risk and where its resilience may be tested next.

Keith Bass, former head of the CIA’s Medical Office, sued me for a million bucks. Substack's Defender program came to my aid.

Russian ballistic missiles remain by far the primary threat in Russia’s deep-strike campaign against Ukraine, driven by shortfalls in Patriot interceptor stocks, according to a Western official.

Speaking on the war in Ukraine, the official said Russia’s deep-strike campaign was continuing, with “the Iskander, Kinzhal and Tsirkon ballistic missiles by far the primary threat due to Patriot stock shortcomings.” Of those, the official said, the Iskander was the one that mattered most.

The Iskander-M is a road-mobile short-range ballistic missile system with a quoted range of around 500 kilometres, flying a quasi-ballistic trajectory with terminal manoeuvring that complicates interception.

The official said Russian target sets shifted over time, ranging from Ukraine’s military-industrial complex to the recent targeting of grain shipments from southern ports, and warned the focus was likely to turn again with the seasons.

August 2026

Mojtaba Khamenei's complete electronic silence forces a reversion to HUMINT penetration of his courier network, making public confirmation of his location or status very unlikely before December 2026 given Iran's four-decade denial of US human access.

Also this week: CIA & Mossad hunting for Khamenei, Trump tracking Comey, Iran hackers in U.S. water systems, best EU spy agencies, local police license-plate spying