《考研英语阅读理解100篇 高分版》 Unit 9 - TEXT FOUR

This is a book you can imagine Alec Leamas, the miserable spook hero of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, enjoying on the number 11 bus back to his dingy Hammersmith flat. “What do you think spies are: priests, saints, martyrs?” Leamas famously snarled. “They're a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors, too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives.”
Plus ca change, apparently. Curveball offers a squalid and up-to-date procession of real-life fools, traitors and game-players seeking to brighten their rotten lives. Principal among them is an Iraqi chemical engineer who pitched up in Germany without a visa in 1999. He asked for political asylum and knew that he would greatly improve his chances of getting it if he could make himself interesting to the intelligence services. Which he did. Before long he had their rapt attention, as well as his own code name, Curveball.
Bob Drogin, a reporter on the Los Angeles Times, relates how over the next couple of years Curveball impressed his interrogators with his detailed knowledge of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programmes. He spoke at length of such things as mobile laboratories that were being used to cook up lethal bugs. The Americans were desperate to have a look at him, too. But the Germans fobbed off their rivals with transcripts and reports, blocking direct access to their prize informer.
Nevertheless, Curveball's story became an important part of the American government's case for invading Iraq. Information taken from his testimony cropped up in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002 (which maintained with “high confidence” that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons); in George Bush's state-of-the-union message in January 2003 (which included a reference to “mobile weapons labs designed to produce germ-warfare agents”); and in Colin Powell's presentation to the UN the following month (which featured computer-generated images of those mobile weapons labs, based on descriptions and drawings by Curveball).
But it was all rubbish. Curveball was a low-level drone and borderline nutcase with a gift for telling people what they wanted to hear. In the run-up to the war—despite the doubts expressed by some experts about Curveball's reliability—nobody bothered to check out his story properly. It was not until 2004, a year after the invasion of Iraq, that the CIA admitted that Curveball had foxed them. He “appears to be fabricating in this stream of reporting”, the burn notice read.
Mr. Drogin points out that, in the aftermath of September 11th 2001, critics lambasted American intelligence for failing to “connect the dots that might have prevented the terrorist attacks”. What makes the Curveball case so dreadful, he reckons, is that this time they simply invented the dots. “If Curveball fused fact and fiction, others twisted and magnified his account in grotesque ways,” he concludes. “Time and again, bureaucratic rivalries, tawdry ambitions and spineless leadership proved more important than professional integrity.” You can just about hear old Alec Leamas muttering “Told you so.”
1. The hero (heroes) of the book Curveball is (are) _____.
[A] Alec Leamas who severely criticizes the profession of spy
[B] a squalid procession of spies
[C] an Iraqi chemical engineer named Curveball
[D] the spies that work for CIA ahead of the Iraqi war
2. Curveball successfully got political asylum in Germany because _____.
[A] he was wanted by Americans
[B] he was the principal of Iraq's bio-chemical engineering project
[C] he boasted of his adequate knowledge on Iraq's information with full confidence
[D] he succeeded in making the Germans believe that he was a reliable and useful informer
3. Curveball's reliability was not suspected despite some experts' doubt because _____.
[A] his knowledge of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs sounded true
[B] he was good at providing information that catered to the demand of western governments
[C] his story has been used in many important government reports
[D] American intelligence neglected their duty
4. The word “dots” (Line 2, Paragraph 6) most probably means _____.
[A] points
[B] marks
[C] falsities
[D] evidences
5. By mentioning old Alec Leamas' muttering “Told you so.” the author implies that _____.
[A] spies are good story-teller
[B] fact is often confused with fiction
[C] people are easily trusting the spies
[D] Alec Leamas is more intelligent than Curveball