Tyler Drumheller

Tyler Drumheller is the former chief of the CIA covert operations in Europe, who has said that the CIA had credible sources discounting some weapons of mass destruction claims before the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. He received and discounted documents central to the Niger yellowcake forgery prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He has also stated that senior White House officials dismissed intelligence information from his agency which reported Saddam Hussein had no WMD program.

According to Drumheller, the CIA, with the help of a friendly intelligence service, recruited Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri in Europe during the late summer of 2002. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11927856/] Sabri told the CIA in September that Saddam had no major active weapons of mass destruction programs; they had no fissile material and biological weapons were almost non-existent, although he claimed that there were chemical weapons. This information was then transmitted to the White House, but it was ignored in favor of the information coming from a source known as Curveball.

On September 6, 2007, Sidney Blumenthal, reporting at salon.com, supported Drumheller's account: "Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it."

Drumheller retired from the CIA in 2005 after a 26-year career there.

Tyler played rugby at the University of Virginia.

Bibliography

* "On the Brink : An Insider's Account of How the White House Compromised American Intelligence" (Carroll & Graf, November, 2006) ISBN 0-7867-1915-X
* "Wie das Weiße Haus die Welt belügt: Der Insider-Bericht des ehemaligen CIA-Chefs von Europa" (Hugendubel Verlag, August, 2007) ISBN 3720530132

External links

* [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/21/60minutes/main1527749.shtml Inteview with 60 Minutes]
* [http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/23/60-minutes-cia-official-reveals-bush-cheney-rice-were-personally-told-iraq-had-no-wmd-in-fall-2002/ Video of CBS intervew]
* [http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12485336/ Interview with MSNBC Hardball]
* [http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf Select Committee on Intelligence Report]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/6683467.stm Mystery flights] (TV program includes interview with Drumheller)
* [http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/dispatches/kidnapped+to+order/552067 A Dispatches report on Extraordinary Rendition] , broadcast on "Channel 4", June 11 2007 (Also includes an interview with Tyler Drumheller)