"Curveball" is the Iraqi exile whose lies were key to the Bush administrations case against Saddam on alleged WMDs, although US intelligence agents were not allowed to talk to him. He was an informant of the German Bundesnachrichtendienst. Thus many Americans criticized Germany later on, when they realized his stories about WMD were nonsense.

Michael Stickings writes that "Curveball" has now spoken publicly. Michael isn't impressed and concludes in The Moderate Voice:

The Bush Administration didn't get it so wrong because of Curveball, however much of a liar he may have been, but because it didn't seem to matter to the warmongers from Bush on down whether they got it right or wrong at all. There were ample warnings questioning Curveballs credibility, as well as the credibility of other such sources, but the warmongers believed what they wanted to believe, so rooted were they in their own fanaticism, and didn't let anything like the truth get in the way.

Still, I wish German and American intelligence agencies would cooperate more so that politicians cannot later blame the other country's agencies for misinformation, but that is probably too much to expect. Well, sometimes they work well together: German spy received US medal for support to combat operations in Iraq in 2003 and German Intelligence gave U.S. Iraqi defense plan.

Since he's taken part in previous German-negotiated prisoner exchanges, he knows the bizarre rules of hostage-trading as well as the main people involved. The German government has twice been a successful mediator between Hezbollah and Israel, and the work is as delicate and demanding as it is prestigious.  The difference this time is that the new talks, technically, shouldn't be happening. Last year BND chief Ernst Uhrlau threatened Hezbollah that the German wouldn't be available if the militia tried to use kidnappings again as a negotiating tactic. (...) The German government was then appropriately reserved when a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, Yigal Palmor, openly asked for negotiating help. "Right now the same officials from Germany would be useful again," he said.

Even if the current negotiations fail, though, the mission will already count as a success for the German government. Any failure in talks will lie at the UN's feet, but a success will bring at least some credit back to Germany.

Most Germans are happy that the low point in German-American relations, when Chancellor Gerhard Schröder noisily opposed the Iraq war in 2002-03, is behind them. But they remain unpersuaded by Mr Bush's charm offensive. Some fear that Germany may again come to seem too close to America. A few fret that the Americans could lure Germany into a "coalition of the willing" against Iran.

Germany could take on Britain's role as America's favourite partner in Europe. The rapprochement partly reflects Mr Bush's pressing need for allies in Europe. To get the Germans on board, Mr Bush has even showed some comprehension, albeit awkwardly expressed, for their opposition to the war. "I've come to realise that the nature of the German people are such that war is very abhorrent (sic)", he said in an interview with a German tabloid.

Slowly but surely Germans are shifting from idealism to realism, particularly over Iran. They are convinced that something must be done about the country's nuclear programme. The recent Pew poll of global attitudes found no country with a higher share of the population opposed to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons than Germany. "Germans know how dangerous a madman at the helm can be," comments Gert Weisskirchen, a foreign-policy guru for the Social Democrats. No party other than the Left Party would oppose "smart" sanctions if Iran rejected the western package of incentives for it to remain non-nuclear.

The plan gave the American military an extraordinary window into Iraq's top-level deliberations, including where and how Mr. Hussein planned to deploy his most loyal troops.

German ships guarded the sea lanes near the Horn of Africa as part of Task Force 150, an effort to deter terrorist attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, for example. The patrols helped safeguard the waterways the United States used to build up its forces in the Persian Gulf for the invasion of Iraq.
German troops were also part of a "consequence management" team, at the United States military base at Camp Doha, Kuwait, which was charged with protecting Kuwaitis after a chemical attack. The measure was justified as defensive. German personnel also guarded American military bases in Germany, freeing United States soldiers to go to Iraq.
When NATO debated whether to send Awacs radar planes and Patriot missile batteries to Turkey, a move the United States was promoting to help persuade Ankara to open a northern front in Iraq, Germany initially was opposed. But it soon dropped its objections. Germany later provided the missiles for the Patriot batteries sent to Turkey.

The United States of America [...] has awarded The Meritorious Service Medal to [...] German Army, for exceptionally meritorious achievement as Senior Analyst from 1 February 2003 to 30 April 2003. His critical information to United States Central Command to support combat operations in Iraq reflects great credit upon himself and the German Federal Armed Services, and the friendship between Germany and the United States of America.

Hours after the 9/11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld  asked his aides to look for evidence of Iraqi involvement, according to notes taken by Stephen Cambone, now undersecretary of defence for intelligence. The notes have just been declassified under the US Freedom of Information Act  in response to a request by law student and blogger Thad Anderson and published in the Guardian and elsewhere. (Time Magazine's Andrew Sullivan gives his post the title of Prof. Glenn Instapundit Reynold's new book An Army of Davids about ordinary people beating mass media, government and other Goliaths.)
Bob Woodward apparently had access to the classified documents and quoted from Chambone's notes in his book Plan of Attack: "hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] @ same time—not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden]." According to Woodward, Colin Powell then said "What the hell! What are these guys thinking about? Can't you get these guys back in the box?"
Paul. R. Pillar, the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, describes in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs how from his standpoint the "Bush administration disregarded the community's expertise, politicized the intelligence process, and selected unrepresentative raw intelligence to make its public case":

The administration used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made. It went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq. (...) If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war -- or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath.

Before the war, on its own initiative, the intelligence community considered the principal challenges that any postinvasion authority in Iraq would be likely to face. It presented a picture of a political culture that would not provide fertile ground for democracy and foretold a long, difficult, and turbulent transition. (...) The intelligence community argued that any value Iraq might have as a democratic exemplar would be minimal and would depend on the stability of a new Iraqi government and the extent to which democracy in Iraq was seen as developing from within rather than being imposed by an outside power. More likely, war and occupation would boost political Islamand increase sympathy for terrorists' objectives -- and Iraq would become a magnet for extremists from elsewhere in the Middle East.