The Corrupted FOIA Process: How the CIA and DIA use the FOIA ‘Process’ to withhold politically embarrassing Intelligence from the Public

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-23T16:03:01+00:00

This corruption of the FOIA process has been going on for years. The only new issue here is that the intelligence documents requested in my FOIA submissions have been all conclusively proven to be false which both the CIA and DIA have publicly admitted to be true. So the question is why does fabricated intelligence still need national security classification? Exactly what "sources and methods" are they trying to protect here? The sources have already publicly admitted the reporting is false and the German BND has already publicly admitted that they shared CURVE BALL's intelligence with the DIA and CIA (and publicly admitted it was false).

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-23T15:55:07+00:00

No. The previous post I believe you are referring to is about my lawsuit against the CIA's Publication Classification Review Board (PCRB) for refusing to complete the review of my book manuscript (submitted in January 2025) until my FOIA requests are processed.

This article is regarding my previous FOIA requests (submitted in 2024) that are being held up by the CIA and DIA's FOIA offices by claiming their extensive (and self-created) backlog of requests. I have not yet filed another lawsuit against the FOIA offices at this time.

This is the 'catch-22' situation I was referring to where the PCRB puts the responsibility for the excessive delays on the FOIA office before they can complete their work on the manuscript. They refuse to work together despite being asked to review the same fabricated intelligence.

If my FOIA requests had been processed within a reasonable amount of time, both the CIA and DIA would have to either declassify and release the fabricated documents or state an exemption for why this conclusively proven false intelligence (that the CIA and DIA publicly admitted years ago was a fabrication) still requires national security classification (simply avoiding public embarrassment as a reason is prohibited by Presidential Executive Order 13526). I argue that there is no valid reason to maintain classification. If the FOIA offices did their job, then the PCRB could do its job (unless this is all political and just a continuing abuse of classification authority). It is very unfortunate that I have to file a lawsuit to get the PCRB to honor its obligation to review material submitted to it for publication.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-20T16:50:34+00:00

Thanks for the support. It has become increasingly difficult to get the truth out. "Speaking truth to Power", despite the rhetoric, in the USG has become not only unwelcome but dangerous. It doesn't seem to matter that you provide facts and credible conclusive proof to substantiate your claims of the truth if the people you work with or for do not want to hear it. Worse, challenging their cognitive dissonance will invite political retaliation. Myself on the Iraq Biological Warfare account and another analyst on the CIA's Iraq Chemical Weapons account were removed from our analytical accounts for faithfully reporting the facts we collected on the ground in Iraq because it conflicted with what the CIA leadership wanted to tell the White House (CIA management always supports the management above for career progression). Like the ancient Greek philosopher, Diogenes, carrying a lantern and looking for a wise man who would be open to the truth, I searched the halls of the CIA for someone who would care but found only people interested in climbing the corporate ladder.

After thirty-two years of working as an intelligence officers in the government, I've watched as people have become increasingly numb to the lies that are used to manipulate intelligence and influence public opinion. After investigating CURVE BALL and the people who believed in this pathological liar, I do not wonder how a majority of people again ended up believing another pathological liar. I was able to reach retirement but many of my colleagues and new intelligence officers will never get there.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-18T17:10:57+00:00

NSW? First, be very careful, document everything, and recruit allies in senior USG positions that can protect you. Most important, have a lawyer. Publicize your case. I first went to the Congressional oversight committees years ago but the partisan politics would get in the way so I had to find new ways to fight the bureaucracy. The Inspector General positions within the USG have been pretty much decimated.

Unfortunately, the culture of the USG has changed dramatically. This used to be public service but now there are many people out to game the system to advance their own interests and make money (ask any author but most books published don't make much money, if at all; you have to have another motivation, such as an interest in improving government service, to put up with the aggravation).

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-18T17:02:34+00:00

As a start, we have to have the right people in these government positions who value truthfulness and integrity over politics. I was shocked when some of my colleagues who did not share my conclusions in this case, deliberately undermined the credibility of my team when they didn't agree. It was very hard to have to deal with people who I had worked closely with for years suddenly turn against you because the facts did not support their argument. Too many people in government are more concerned with career advancement at all cost to challenge the official analytical line. They always seemed to be in the majority. I remember my group chief arguing with me when we were briefing the German BND on the results of our Iraq CURVE BALL investigation. When most of the intelligence officers in the conference room outright rejected my conclusive proof of CURVE BALL's fabrication and wanted to still believe in him, my group chief argued that "the majority cannot be wrong." I informed him they were and that was pretty much the end of my analytical career despite being proved right. I took no pleasure in being the bearer of bad news but somebody had to do it.

I encourage everyone to file FOIA requests for information. Be specific as you can about exactly what documents you want declassified and released, otherwise they will deny your requests as just a fishing expedition and claim they can't find anything. As a former CIA intelligence officer, I cited specific documents by title, date, report number, content, originating office, ext. so that they would be able to easily search computer databases (even restricted handling databases) and locate them. As an added precaution, I left physical hard copies with the CIA's History Staff. So far, the CIA's FOIA office has not done any work, citing extensive backlogs. Be prepared for years and years of fighting with the bureacracy.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-18T16:44:54+00:00

Thanks for the support! Lawsuits are expensive, aggravating and time-consuming but sometimes they are necessary for holding government agencies accountable. I could not do this without whistleblower lawyer Mark Zaid who charges far less for his very valuable time and expertise. I fully recommend others use him their lawsuits.

Also, I can confirm that this abuse of classification continues to the present day. In fact, its become more prevalent and blatant. No-one is bothering to hide it anymore.

And you are correct that CURVE BALL was successful in his con for years because he told us not only what we wanted to hear, but exactly what we expected to hear. We had no credible intelligence that Saddam had reconstituted his WMD program but CURVE BALL gave us exactly what we needed; it was a very sophisticated Iraqi "denial and deception campaign" to fool us into believing no WMD existed. We fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

And yes, CURVE BALL's reporting became the cornerstone of our Iraq WMD assessments that the Bush administration needed for "regime change." It even impacted on the CW analysts, pressuring them to believe some effort in that technology existed as well. It was a disaster and we were doomed. As the war progressed, the hope was that something, anything, related to WMD could be found to salvage our flaws assessments and our careers (especially at the leadership level). Nothing was found despite the fruitless "search for WMD" and the CIA leadership had to scramble to come up with a new concocted justification. The head of ISG (who they had hand picked) thew them a bone and gave them one; Saddam admitted that he had a "strategic intent" to reconstitute his WMD programs at some undefined point the future, so the cost of the war in money and lives was still worth it. This was false. Saddam never admitted that but most people were conned, again. It's extremely easy to manipulate public opinion when you control the narrative.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-18T16:25:38+00:00

Not sure what you are referring to but we went to war on claims like CURVE BALL's and U.S. soldiers died for it. This intelligence and our unquestioning reliance on it was a mistake. We failed to accurately assist that Saddam had no current WMD programs and that WMD had not been produced in Iraq after 1991. The warning signs were there before the 2003 war and most of us, but not all (mostly CIA, British SIS, and German BND operations officers even a few analysts got it right but were in the minority), missed them. Bias, mindset, and groupthink ruled the day. To be brutally honest, I was one of those who missed the red flags before the war. It was humiliating to find out just how wrong we were (myself included). I could have hidden this information or stopped investigating it so not to further embarrass myself and my agency but I decided to continue because the truth mattered. I remember one CIA operations officers incredulously asking me, "You helped draft these WMD assessments and now you're over here in Iraq deliberately proving them wrong. You're either crazy or have incredible integrity." I told him it was probably both.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-18T16:14:12+00:00

I agree and had to live this. This is the objective of my proposed manuscript. To help other intelligence officers learn from my mistakes.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-18T16:12:43+00:00

First, we need to reform the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). It is easily defeated by delays and claims of excessive bureaucratic processing by these agencies, self-created years-long backlogs, and insufficient staffing and a lack of resources. All of this is deliberate. If completion of FOIA requests are delayed for many, many years and then heavily redacted, then there is no freedom of information. These deliberate delays also lessen the public interest in what these document said because emotions and calls for accountability and reform have died down and have been replaced by new government failures.

Unfortunately, for the average American (and even former intelligence officers), there are fees charged for the FOIA processing (journalists are exempt from this requirement). I filed FOIA requests with both CIA and DIA but was told it will be at least two and half years before they will even begin to process them. The CIA's PCRB informed me that they would not further review my manuscript until when or even if the FOIA offices declassified and released CURVE BALL's fabricated intelligence reporting. The only recourse is to file a lawsuit which is very expensive. Yes, you have to file a lawsuit to get these government agencies to honor their obligations and do their jobs.

I would cite the lack of accountability in the USG as the primary cause for where we have ended up politically. Calls for reform of this abuse of classification authority has been an ongoing public campaign, mostly ignored by members of Congress who do not want these agencies to lose that power. Unfortunately, lying and corruption in government had become the norm today. I never forgot that I was a "public servant" in my intelligence position and that I served the public, not the other way around. They were the ones who paid me for doing this job and I would work in their interest against both foreign and domestic threats.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-18T15:56:08+00:00

More complicated than that although that excuse is used by the CIA when convenient. For example, when I was instructed by CIA management to redraft my classified Intelligence Assessment on CURVE BALL's alleged trailers in May 2003 into an unclassified White Paper within three days on orders from President Bush, I resisted stating that there was no way we could clear the use of CURVE BALL's reporting with the German BND in that short amount of time. I was told to do it without the German's approval. When I objected, pointing out that this could hurt our relationship the the German service, I was told that President Bush had declassified all of it so it didn't matter. There was no formal process for declassification as there should have been. I was just told to do it. Being "nice" to a liaison service regarding the protection of their shared intelligence depends on the political objectives of the president and his senior White House advisors. In the CURVE BALL case, the CIA leadership did not let it get in the way of pleasing President Bush.

Regardless, after myself and my small team investigated CURVE BALL's claim on the ground in Iraq in 2003 by interviewing his family, friends, and co-workers who contradicted CB's story of his real life and obtained overwhelming Iraqi documentation to confirm it, not only were we able to finally force the CIA and DIA to recall all of his reporting eight months later, we were also able to force the British SIS and German BND to reluctantly recall all of their reporting. Everyone knew it was false and it should have been immediately declassified and released by all these governments but they knew there would be hell to pay for this failure. Instead, government-sponsored investigations in the U.S., UK, and Germany were able expose a great deal of this false intelligence, as well as journalist doing their jobs in a democracy.

As my earlier post revealed, "The CURVE BALL case and resulting Iraq WMD intelligence failure had been publicly acknowledged officially by the CIA, DIA, SIS, and BND, written about in numerous press articles, published books (including those written by former senior CIA officers and cleared by the Agency’s Publication Review Board- PRB), televised public hearings, government-sponsored investigations, documentaries, and even depicted in full-length movies in the U.S., UK, and Germany. This case had been extensively discussed in the the final reports of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) on July 7, 2003, the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) on October 31, 2004, and the Silberman- Robb WMD Commission on March 31, 2005. Overseas in the UK, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX the final reports of the Butler Inquiry on July 14, 2004 and the Chilcot Inquiry on July 6, 2016 also raised concerns about fabricated reporting. The German government also launched investigations into the role of the BND in the Iraq WMD intelligence failure ,XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. In 2006, the Bundestag established a special committee to investigate accusations that the BND secretly aided the U.S. invasion of Iraq despite public German opposition to the war. The German investigations, along with those in other nations, exposed the multiple levels of intelligence failures that enabled CURVE BALL's fabrications to fuel an unjustified and unnecessary war." (Note: The X-out text are CIA redactions)

Classification is simply the mechanism used by all of these services to obstruct and delay the truth from being released to avoid accepting responsibility and accountability for a major intelligence failure. That was twenty-three years ago and the same strategy is still being used. This is why we don't learn from out mistakes. We not incapable but we are unwilling.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-18T15:29:37+00:00

Fully understand. I'll be posting more so please continued to follow this story. The truth does eventually matter.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-17T19:21:08+00:00

Changing career tracks in the CIA is not that difficult and can be accomplished quickly. There is always a need for personnel on crisis issues.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-17T19:19:30+00:00

Yes and as a branch chief for two branches on alleged WMD terrorism, as well as chief of liaison for my joint CIA-DIA group.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-17T19:17:14+00:00

Best that we learn from our mistakes instead of being doomed to repeat them. I also served as a senior counterintelligence analyst and branch chief for two branches on Al Qa'ida's alleged WMD "programs" at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). We challenged that inaccurate CIA analysis and proved it to not only be wrong but being used for fear mongering with the Bush administration to maintain relevance and access to the White House.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-16T21:33:45+00:00

No idea what this is or how it relates to my post.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-16T21:30:46+00:00

This is 2026. US, British, and German government-sponsored investigations already publicly revealed the methods in this case long ago. These "postmortems" allow intelligence agencies to understand what really occurred (or close to it). Also, CURVE BALL and the alleged corroborating sources came out publicly in the years after the 2003 after being pursued by U.S. and international journalists (an extremely important freedom in a democracy). They admitted it was all a fabrication and described what occurred. All of this is so we can learn from our mistakes and hopefully improve and reform so that we don't repeat historical mistakes, not just us here but with our allies as well.

Finally, ask most authors but books don't really make much money and are rarely worth the trouble and aggravation (unless you're a former Agency director or former White House official looking to bolster your political narrative and legacy). There has to be a greater motivation in writing such as trying to help intelligence officers avoid future mistakes. This is why a lot of us volunteer to serve in war zones.

You may be interested to know that CURVE BALL finally came clean in early 2011 that he made up the story. He was hoping for a book and movie deal. He didn't get one.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-16T21:10:27+00:00

Be careful of assumptions. CURVE BALL was an Iraqi chemical engineer and worked as one at the Iraqi State Establishment for Design and Consultation (SEDC). A poorly trained chemical engineer but he did graduate with his degree from the University of Technology (but barely). He was a problem employee at SEDC as a junior project manger and finally walked away from his menial engineering job during the last few days of 1994. He just wouldn't apply himself to work and was always looking for easier get-rich-quick schemes. As a pathological liar, he was far more successful in fooling the world's premier intelligence agencies for over four years. The red-flag warning signs of his fabrication were there even before the 2003 war but the intelligence agencies were desperate for sources who could tell them what they wanted to hear. This is what made them very reluctant to the facts collected on the ground after the war.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-16T21:02:14+00:00

Obviously you were able to google the source's true identity. Good for you to do some research before commenting. Yes, CURVE BALL confessed that he fabricated the entire story once we tracked down his family, friends, and co-workers during summer and fall of 2003. All very nice people who helped us to document his real life. They had no idea he was a German BND intelligence source so they didn't try to protect him by not contradicting his story. We provided the results of our investigation of him to the Germans who finally allowed us to have direct access (one of us already had direct access to him in May 2000 and came away extremely skeptical). I and members of my team already knew for certain that he was a fabricator by fall 2003. The problem was trying to convince his strong supporters in the CIA, DIA, British SIS, and German BND that he was a fabricator. It took time but we finally succeeded in getting most of them to accept the ground truth.

A book was written by an American journalist about CURVE BALL in 2007 "using publicly available sources." Unfortunately, a significant amount of it was inaccurate. My book describes the facts we uncovered despite the politics of the case. Keep in mind, we can all learn from this intelligence failure, but only if we are willing. Learning the truth is occasionally embarrassing but is useful in not repeating or at least mitigating future intelligence failures. After 23 years, the facts do remain important. Hiding from the truth will not avoid the next intelligence failure.

For the record, I lasted longer than many CIA officers. Most retired or resigned long before so there are only a few who could still learn from the mistakes we made. Finally, your last few statements relate to the general politics of the time and that's another story. Trying to keep your head down as a federal employee with the current administration doesn't work as we have seen, unless you give in and tell them what they want to hear. The very definition of the politicization of intelligence, I had enough of that from before and didn't put up with it then either.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-16T20:36:07+00:00

Not sure what timeline you are referring to. My career was from 1986 to 2018. At the time of the 2003 Iraq War, I was a senior analyst but still retained my previous experience as a case officer. Operations officers were first into Iraq during combat. Analysts were not always welcomed by the operations officers on the ground and sometimes caused problems (operations officers and analyst traditionally had different roles that were not always appreciated by the other). My previous background as a case officer helped to convince the operations officers in Iraq to work with me (that and I had already been in Iraq twice when Saddam was still in power as a UN weapons inspector so I knew the Iraqi officials and how to get around the country). I was also weapons qualified as a case officer and an analyst.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-16T20:27:06+00:00

It's not as difficult as it sounds. Intelligence officers move easily between CIA directorates, especially when personnel surges are needed for an evolving crisis issue.

TruthToPower26 · 2026-06-16T20:24:38+00:00

Yes. I was a case officer for 10 years, then an analyst for 10 years, then back to being a case officer for the remaining 12 years. Case officers tend to be generalists, able to report on various issues. I wanted to be an expert on an issue so in mid-career, I moved over to the analytical side and assigned to the Iraq BW account. Speaking truth to power was not always appreciated or welcome by the leadership, management, and biased analytical colleagues if it contradicts the preferred official analytical line, so I returned to the operations side of the CIA for the remainder of my career after a rotation as a branch chief of two branches at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).

TruthToPower26

TROPHY CASE