Leadership for Intelligence Professionals   

A Case Study in the Need for Persistently and Effectively Speaking Up

In their separate books, authors Bob Drogin and Tyler Drumheller, Chief of the European Division of the CIA Directorate of Operations, detail the continuing efforts alert CIA analysts and the CIA leadership of the unreliability of the Iraqi defector codenamed “Curveball” and to convince them not to rely on the information provided by “Curveball” for use in intelligence products and, especially, in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations.  Drumheller and his staff said they repeatedly sent e-mails, argued in meetings with analysts and in face-to-face discussions with senior officials urged caution with the information from the defector.

But, in his book, George Tenet the Director of Central Intelligence at the time, disputes that concerns about “Curveball” were properly documented, conveyed to the lead analyst or brought to the attention of the Deputy Director or himself.

Summarizing the issue, the report of the Presidential Commission on intelligence on weapons of mass destruction says:

On several occasions, operations officers within this division expressed doubts about Curveball’s credibility, the adequacy of his vetting, and the wisdom of relying on his information.

These views were expressed to the CIA Leadership, including at least the Associate Deputy Director for Operations and the executive assistant to the Deputy Director of Intelligence and likely the Deputy Director of Operations and even—to some degree—mentioned to the Director of Central Intelligence himself.  It would appear, however, that the criticism of Curveball grew less pointed when expressed in writing as the issue rose through the CIA’s chain of command.  In other words we are confidant that doubts about Curveball were expressed in one way or another to the Deputy Director for Central Intelligence, it is less clear whether these doubts were accompanied by the full detailed panoply of information calling into question Curveball’s reliability that was presented to more junior supervisors.  We found no evidence that the doubts were conveyed by the CIA leadership to policymakers in general—or Secretary Powell in particular.

As the discussion above illustrates, it is unclear precisely how and why these serious concerns about Curveball never reached Secretary Powell….if such concerns were in fact raised to senior management, the failure to pass that information to Secretary Powell, represents a serious failure of management and leadership.

Read:

-Bob Drogin; Curveball: Spies, Lies and the Con Man Who Caused a War.

-Tyler Drumheller; On the Brink.

-George Tenet; At the Center of the Storm (See pages 376-378.)

- Lawrence Silverman and Senator Charles Robb,  Report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, released 31 March 2005. See pages 83-110 or the full report at http://www.wmd.gov/report/wmd_report.pdf. 

Classroom students are given an extended set of extracts from Curveball as a case study for discussion of failures of staff work and Leadership.