“The CIA never thought all their intelligence was right,” said L.A. Times reporter Bob Drogin in McClatchy Hall last night. “They just never considered that it was all wrong.”

In “Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War,” Drogin’s new book on the rationale for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the reporter claims that the CIA was, in fact, dead wrong when it came to America’s intelligence of the situation in Iraq.

“I became more and more determined to get to the bottom of that,” he said to last night’s audience.

According to Drogin, the government relied heavily on the hearsay of Rafid Ahmed Alwan — a manic depressive chemical engineer also known as Curveball, his CIA pseudonym — about biological weapons in Iraq. Alwan, who fled Iraq in 1999 and sought asylum in Germany, embellished his story about Iraq’s biological weapons program in order to speed his admittance into the country.

“The Germans were convinced there was a secret program, and suddenly this guy walks through the door,” Drogin said. “His information was treated like gold.”

Still, Drogin acknowledged that many people raised doubts about the information since it relied on a single source. But after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, those caveats were forgotten, and Alwan’s information, translated from Arabic to German to English, became the main justification for declaring war on Iraq.

“So, we go to war,” Drogin said.

As it was later discovered, Alwan’s claims were exaggerated at best, and fabricated at worst, which the CIA officially admitted in 2004.

“The CIA conned itself here,” Drogin said. “They saw what they wanted to see, they heard what they wanted to hear, and they told the White House what they wanted to know.”

According to Drogin, the CIA had never met Alwan and didn’t even know his real name.

“I think it’s instructive of how things go bad,” he said. “It’s frightening to me how often they’re wrong.”

Alwan has never recanted his claims, and Germany has never officially labeled him a fabricator. To the best of Drogin’s knowledge, Alwan still lives in southern Germany and goes by a different name, under a German program similar to witness protection in the U.S.

Because of these protections, Drogin was unable to speak with Alwan.

“It’s like, where’s Osama?” Drogin said. “If I knew, I would find him.”

Drogin, a former Knight Fellow at Stanford and Media Fellow for the Hoover Institution, broke the Curveball story for the L.A. Times in 2004. His book came out earlier this year and will soon be made into a movie.

Last night’s speech was followed by an opportunity for the audience, which mostly consisted of older men, to ask questions.

“I am so angry at this goddamn administration,” one audience member burst out. “I wish you could do something to stop this,” referring to the possibility that the U.S. might soon declare war on Iran, which Drogin said he personally opposes.

“But bad information takes on a life of its own,” Drogin said in reply. “I look at it like medieval clerics searching for witchcraft.”

Toyon Resident Fellow Amy Friedman, Drogin’s cousin, came to the speech with other family members, including her two children.

“He told us about the book while he was still writing it,” she said. “It’s a really interesting angle on the whole run-up to the war, and how, if you want to believe something, it’s easy to find evidence to corroborate it.”

And as for the rest of the story, “I’m not going to tell you,” Drogin said. “It’s in the book.”