How Ahmed Chalabi gamed the neocons and America

“In case you haven't heard, US troops have raided the home of Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress and the source of much of our Iraq WMD 'intellegence' referred to by Colin Powell this past weekend as "deliberately misleading".

Andrew Cockburn has a story about him in Counterpunch.

Think we'll be advertising a few openings at the Pentagon shortly?”

“Think he threw them a Curveball?”

“(Neo)con men prove to be easy marks

John Farmer
Friday, May 21, 2004

There's no juicier plot in literature (or politics in this case) than the tale of a trio of know-it-all con men who get conned themselves -- turned into marks, in the lingo of the flimflam trade

The marks in this sad saga are the neoconservatives who have driven the Bush administration's Iraq policy -- Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary; Douglas Feith, undersecretary for policy in the Pentagon, and Richard Perle, a member (and former chairman) of the Defense Advisory Board. Together, they went to Washington determined to make their pet idea -- invade Iraq as a prelude to remaking the Middle East and making life safer for Israel -- American policy.

And the con man who took them into camp is Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress.

Chalabi's flimflam credentials are impeccable. Although long gone from Iraq (some 30 years) and on the run from embezzlement, fraud and currency manipulation convictions in Jordan, where the bank he ran collapsed, Chalabi sold himself to Wolfowitz et al. as just the gent to lead the new Iraq. To bait the hook more tantalizingly, he fed them a steady diet of intelligence (mostly bogus) about all the weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein was hiding. And to make the enterprise really worthwhile, he took them -- or the U.S. taxpayer, to be exact -- for $340,000 a month in walking around money.

He was good, Chalabi was, right up there with the legendary Charles Ponzi or Henry Gondorff, the Paul Newman character in the con game classic "The Sting."

How did he get away with it? Primarily because, like all con men with pride in their work, he made sure he knew his marks and just what they'd fall for. He sold them the idea of a nice, easily winnable, world-altering war. He even promised that the new Iraq would take a kinder view of Israel and allow Israeli businessmen to set up shop in Baghdad and talked of reopening a long-dead oil pipeline between Mosul in northern Iraq and the Israeli port of Haifa. And these rubes bought it.

Or, as John Dizard of the Financial Times, writing in Slate, put it, "Chalabi appears to have recognized that the neocons, while ruthless, realistic and effective in bureaucratic politics, were remarkably ignorant about the situation in Iraq and willing to buy a fantasy of how the country's politics worked. So he sold it to them."

Chalabi had reason to know his marks well. As Dizard points out, he met Wolfowitz and Perle at 1969 while acquiring a Ph.D. in math at the University of Chicago. The introduction was arranged by Albert Wohlstetter, a mathematician, a conservative "defense intellectual," a founder of the neoconservative movement and a political mentor to Wolfowitz and Perle. And Chalabi knew that from at least the late 1980s, they were at the heart of a movement among right-wing American intellectuals pressing for an invasion of Iraq.

Working from a base in London, Chalabi fed their fever with intelligence tidbits supposedly gathered from some kind of network run by his Iraq National Congress in Iraq. He took the CIA into camp for a time, it appears. But as the Bush Pentagon's appetite for war waxed, the CIA's view of Chalabi as a credible source waned. Be wary of the guy, the agency warned.

But Wolfowitz and Feith -- with Dick Cheney as their White House enabler -- were having none of it. Instead, they pressured the CIA to get with the program, come up with dope that supported war. Indeed, Wolfowitz and Feith even created an "intelligence" shop of their own in the Pentagon to counter and compete with the CIA on Iraq.

What they produced was a sham, as Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counterintelligence expert, wrote at the time. "The (INC) intelligence isn't reliable at all," Cannistraro wrote. "Much of it is propaganda ... telling the Defense Department what they want to hear" and used "to support Chalabi's presidential ambitions." And some of it, he added, "goes right into (American) vice presidential and presidential speeches."

There is always the possibility that Wolfowitz and the rest of the Pentagon neocons recognized Chalabi for the con man he is. But he was their con man, providing outside support for their goal of remaking the Middle East, as outlined in a 1996 paper titled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." Among the authors of the document, issued by Jerusalem's Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, were Feith and Perle.

For Chalabi, the game is up. On Wednesday, U.S.-backed forces in Iraq busted into his home and INC offices and confiscated records and computers. But odds are he'll survive, if not in Iraq, then maybe in Iran, whose Shi'a leadership he's been courting -- just in case. The real question is how much longer Wolfowitz and Feith can survive. There's not much of a market for a couple of con men so easily conned.

John Farmer is The Star-Ledger's national political correspondent.”

“Are you people feeling like it's time for a change?”

“ahhhhhhh yeah.”

“vast right wing conspiracy. no doupt....

good thing we have violin protecting us...”

“You could always check it out for yourself, Strat. See what you can find out about Chalabi, then make your judgement as to whether it was a good idea to take his word for anything.”

“Odd thing was that even inthe build up to war, the US was saying the the INC would play a roll, but not be installed, which might turn out to be a bad idea. They coulda at least had them run "interm".

I do find the timing very odd, seeing that he is one of the only people over there to support the US, now he's against us. I know he's a crook; I'll bet you the US is preping him to take the fall. You watch.”

“I wonder if his son's name is Bobby. Bobby Chalabi would be such a cool name.”

“Good thing we have stratdewd protecting spies for Iran and traitors in the US government. *eyeroll*



(CBS/AP) Senior U.S. officials have told 60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl that they have evidence Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi has been passing highly-classified U.S. intelligence to Iran.

The evidence shows that Chalabi - who was once seen as the man likely to lead Iraq by White House and Pentagon officials - personally gave Iranian intelligence officers information so sensitive that if revealed it could, quote, "get Americans killed." The evidence is said to be "rock solid."

Sources have told Stahl a high-level investigation is under way into who in the U.S. government gave Chalabi such sensitive information in the first place.

In addition, sources told Stahl that one of Chalabi's closest confidantes — a senior member of his organization, the Iraqi national congress — is believed to have been recruited by Iran's intelligence agency, the Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS) — and is on their payroll.

continued”

“vast right wing stupidity is more like it.

quite the con game...costly too.”

“Meanwhile, Stahl reports that "grave concerns" about the true nature of Chalabi's relationship with Iran started after the U.S. obtained "undeniable intelligence" that Chalabi met with a senior Iranian intelligence, a "nefarious figure from the dark side of the regime - an individual with a direct hand in covert operations directed against the United States."

Chalabi never reported this meeting to his friends and sponsors in the U.S. government, says Stahl.


Wouldn't it be awesome if it turned out the Iranians set up this trap sucking the USA into the middle-east in a long quagmire that will financially bleed the USA to death?”

“"You can't cheat an honest man," as the saying goes....

I'm hearing that Scott Joplin music. How about you?”

“And still...... well meaning people will support this awful mess of a president and this tragedy he's created.

I was upset at Clinton when he screwed up in Mogadishu. Holy mother of God what a mess this nitwit has gotten us into.”

“Lotsa interesting Chalabi stories on Washington Journal this AM....”

“Bobby Chalabi, good one Dunadan. Did you get my email a few days back?”

“JORDAN TIP EXPOSED CHALABI AS IRAN 'SPY'

By NILES LATHEM

WASHINGTON - Jordan's King Abdullah fueled the U.S. move against Iraqi leader Ahmed Chalabi by providing bombshell intelligence that his group was spying for Iran, The Post has learned.”

“Tilt, why in the heck are you linking to the NY post?

My eyes hurt now.”

“Supreme irony from the pretendident's commencement address at LSU yesterday:

"On the job and elsewhere in life, choose your friends carefully. The company you keep has a way of rubbing off on you -- and that can be a good thing, or a bad thing. In my job, I got to pick just about everybody I work with."”

“Sorry Phaedrus, LOL



One evening in October, when I was one-third sober,
An' taking home a ‘load' with manly pride;
My poor feet began to stutter, so I lay down in the gutter,
And a pig came up an' lay down by my side;
Then we sang ‘It's all fair weather when good fellows get together,'
Till a lady passing by was heard to say:
‘You can tell a man who "boozes" by the company he chooses'
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.

by Benjamin Hapgood Burt (1933)”

“It's even worse than I thought. We've been had.


Agency: Chalabi group was front for Iran

BY KNUT ROYCE
WASHINGTON BUREAU

May 21, 2004, 7:29 PM EDT


WASHINGTON -- The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has been used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets, according to intelligence sources.

"Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program information to provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source Friday who was briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions, which were based on a review of thousands of internal documents.

The Information Collection Program also "kept the Iranians informed about what we were doing" by passing classified U.S. documents and other sensitive information, he said. The program has received millions of dollars from the U.S. government over several years.

An administration official confirmed that "highly classified information had been provided [to the Iranians] through that channel."

The Defense Department this week halted payment of $340,000 a month to Chalabi's program. Chalabi had long been the favorite of the Pentagon's civilian leadership. Intelligence sources say Chalabi himself has passed on sensitive U.S. intelligence to the Iranians.

Patrick Lang, former director of the intelligence agency's Middle East branch, said he had been told by colleagues in the intelligence community that Chalabi's U.S.-funded program to provide information about weapons of mass destruction and insurgents was effectively an Iranian intelligence operation. "They [the Iranians] knew exactly what we were up to," he said.

He described it as "one of the most sophisticated and successful intelligence operations in history."

"I'm a spook. I appreciate good work. This was good work," he said.

An intelligence agency spokesman would not discuss questions about his agency's internal conclusions about the alleged Iranian operation. But he said some of its information had been helpful to the U.S. "Some of the information was great, especially as it pertained to arresting high value targets and on force protection issues," he said. "And some of the information wasn't so great."

At the center of the alleged Iranian intelligence operation, according to administration officials and intelligence sources, is Aras Karim Habib, a 47-year-old Shia Kurd who was named in an arrest warrant issued during a raid on Chalabi's home and offices in Baghdad Thursday. He eluded arrest.

Karim, who sometimes goes by the last name of Habib, is in charge of the information collection program.

The intelligence source briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions said that Karim's "fingerprints are all over it."

"There was an ongoing intelligence relationship between Karim and the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, all funded by the U.S. government, inadvertently," he said.

The Iraqi National Congress has received about $40 million in U.S. funds over the past four years, including $33 million from the State Department and $6 million from the Defense Intelligence Agency.

In Baghdad after the war, Karim's operation was run out of the fourth floor of a secure intelligence headquarters building, while the intelligence agency was on the floor above, according to an Iraqi source who knows Karim well.

The links between the INC and U.S. intelligence go back to at least 1992, when Karim was picked by Chalabi to run his security and military operations.

Indications that Iran, which fought a bloody war against Iraq during the 1980s, was trying to lure the U.S. into action against Saddam Hussein appeared many years before the Bush administration decided in 2001 that ousting Hussein was a national priority.

In 1995, for instance, Khidhir Hamza, who had once worked in Iraq's nuclear program and whose claims that Iraq had continued a massive bomb program in the 1990s are now largely discredited, gave UN nuclear inspectors what appeared to be explosive documents about Iraq's program. Hamza, who fled Iraq in 1994, teamed up with Chalabi after his escape.

The documents, which referred to results of experiments on enriched uranium in the bomb's core, were almost flawless, according to Andrew Cockburn's recent account of the event in the political newsletter CounterPunch.

But the inspectors were troubled by one minor matter: Some of the techinical descriptions used terms that would only be used by an Iranian. They determined that the original copy had been written in Farsi by an Iranian scientist and then translated into Arabic.

And the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded the documents were fraudulent.

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.”

“Now does anyone want to rethink the policy of preemption?”

“I think Tommy Franks was pretty accurate when he said of Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's undersecretary for policy, "I have to deal with the #&%!$ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth almost every day."”

“Link

They also said there is evidence Chalabi met with a senior Iranian intelligence official described as a "nefarious figure" who has played a direct role in activities against the United States. ”

“The Bush administration is completely incompetent.”

“All this money and lies spent on the information of some Iraqi double agent. BUSH MUST BE IMPEACHED!

What a complete fhuckkin' arsehole!!!”

“It appears that Iran got us to free the Shiite majority.

Pretty slick!”

“I’m pretty sure what the reaction around here would have been if the Clinton administration had been duped into invading Iraq by agents of a sworn enemy of the US and information only available to extremely high ranking administration officials had been passed to Iranian mullahs.

Why the silence now?

Who are the ‘useful idiots’ and ‘traitors’ in this story?”

“If the manner in which they pursued a pissant flakey land deal for over half a decade is any indication, I can only imagine how they would react to something as blatant as the entire Iraq fiasco. They'd have Clinton's head on a platter within a month's time.


O Well.... When do we invade Syria?”

“That's all we need, Bush on TV calling Syrian insurgents.... syrial killers.”

“The only thing that seems to matter to some people around here is that he's republican. He's no fiscal conservative, that's for sure. He's hardly a small government guy, but he's republican. He isn't a career military guy or a successful businessman, but he's republican. He's not a self-made, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps guy, but he's republican.

He's religious, anti-abortion, in favor of tax cutting and increased military spending. Other than that, he's got as much in common with most conservative leaders as Barbara Streisand, but he's republican.

I swear, there are certain people on this board that would make excuses for this administration if it turned out they were intentioanlly trying to bankrupt the federal government, kill American soldiers and sell secrets to Iran...

Err pay someone to give secrets to Iran.”

“Where are all the TT conservatives?
Straight's probably waiting to hear Rush's opinion or Hannity's before he posts in.

Nigal referred to Kerry as that "war criminal" the other day.
Hmmm? Seems to me if Cheney pushed this scum Challabi on the US and he gave away sensititve info to the Iranians....then Cheney's in some deep doodoo.

When will this nonsense stop?”

“With any luck.... late January, 2005. Kerry better bring plenty of ink for his veto pen.


Ya Know --- I don't think Bacpac has been getting enough ketchup. Ketchup contains natural mellowing agents that comfort the soul. Ketchup can put you on top of the world without your having to go to Nepal. Those natural mellowing agents can help take the sting out of life's disappointments and boost self confidence.

When applied to the scalp, they are easily absorbed by the hair roots, and go directly to the brain and the cerebral cortex.

Ketchup. For the good times.




(sorry, Garrison)”

“Still no word from the steadfast, stalwart, patriotic TT conservative gang.

I can see them now.....out in the garage listening to AM radio awaiting instructions. Tammy Wynnette's singing, "Stand by Your Man".

Yes boys....good old uncle Dick sold you a load of crap and bunk.
792 dead American boys and girls.... all on the advice of Amhed Challabi.”

“1998 letter to President Clinton from (among others) Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams,
Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Frank Carlucci, Doug Feith, Frank Gaffney, William Kristol, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz urging a policy that "recognize(s) a provisional government of Iraq based on the principles and leaders of the Iraqi National Congress".”

“This was obviously Clinton's fault (mark my words).”

“60 minutes did a piece on this guy a year ago. No one listened.”

“Remember what W said.....you're either with the evil guys or with the good guys. Don't question W's judgement.”

“back from the buuffalo river!

hmm...what'd i miss?


ooooOOoooo0oooOohhh....a bunch of lliberal crows cawing at how evil Bush is.... what a pleasant surprise!

boys boys boys....this will fizzle out into another big fat ZERO. just like every other frenzy the left has tried to whip up over georgie boy.

chalibi is a bad guy. he has his own interest. WOW! big shocker there! huge revelation, no doupt. i knew that guy was shiesty the first 10 seconds i laied eyes on him...i mean back when all this started, they showed him, even mentioned him for the new iraqi president....even liberals were naming him as a possibility back then. bush said no way, jose'. gotta think boys...think.

38 posts and all you guys are patting yourselves on the back for being so wonderful as to prove your very own president is a bad guy. you are so hopeful, so joyous at the possibility. think about that....you WANT to be the bad guys here....it's you goal; to make the USA look bad in global eyes. wow. congratulations. and like phaddrush said....you hate him, will never give him credit for anything, will always criticize him...no matter what...just because he's republican. much to your shagrin, once again, the simple mind from texas, the worst leader since hitler.....bulletproof bush will play this one like a stratavarious....

maybe bush sold missle technological secrets for campaign contributions to chalibi.....
oh wait...that was some other president wasn't it?

chill out, what's you yellin for
sit down, it's all been done before

pray for horrible news , suffering, anguish and pain for america. keep root root rooting for desaster and mayhem. convince everyone that they are miserable and everyone hates them because of bush.

those are your talking points condenced down into a nutshell.

it's your only hope.....

the power of negativity....

best of luck to ya!”

“Challabi wuz Bush's n Cheney's boy all along straight....caint pin it on the evil libs tis time. Nice spin cycle dewd.

And this crap you're peddlin about people wanting the USA to look bad is just plain stupid. Nice spin cycle dewd. You're the one that will LET the USA look stupid just to support a person...that being your idol, W.

He's a disgrace.

Challabi sure took your boy W for a fool and chump....you too it would seem.
Like I've said before....your pride is gettin in the way of your brain. Sooner or later you'll admit it....but probably not here in pseudo public. I take you for a prideful coward.

Stratavarious??? He can't even successfully eat a pretzel.”

“One thing I think we all can agree on: abandoning Chalabai opens the door to a new strategy in Iraq. Bush's speech tonight will be most interesting. I wonder what the culmination of the strategic review is, and how Bush will couch it in terms that do not contradict his public WMD justification for the war.”

“Where are those WMD's anyway?
Oh yeah, now the war is about bringing our own brand of torture to the Iraqui people.
I'm sure the righteous right is glad that we have a point man like Chalabi to lead us out of this mess.”

“You've really outdone yourself this time strat. I didn't think you could get any more oblivious, but I was wrong.

Just who is that special guest pictured behind Laura Bush at the last SOTU address? Who decided to fund the INC after the State Department cut off their funding last year? Who flew Chalabi and his ‘troops’ into Iraq just last month? Are you the least bit troubled that many of the key figures in the Iran-Contra scandal are now deeply embedded in this administration and were Chalabi’s key supporters? Do you wonder who in our government may have passed state secrets to this guy that may well have gotten US servicemen killed?

JIHAD CRITICAL THOUGHT!”

“and like phaddrush said....you hate him, will never give him credit for anything, will always criticize him...no matter what...just because he's republican.

While I admit that there are a few on this board who will not give him any credit because he is republican, my point was that people like YOU refuse to admit his most obvious shortfallings and blunders BECAUSE HE'S REPUBLICAN.”

“AND MY POINT IS THAT IT'S NO DIFFERENT THAN ALL OF YOU”

“chalibi schmalibi....”

“792 and counting

Where's the outrage?”

“Well, the speech was disappointing to me. I'm disappointed that Bush is going to continue with the current strategy, as it's obvious it has had serious shortcomings. Perhaps Bush knows something we don't and Iraq will be pacified by the election - which would easily give him the victory in November. Or maybe Bush is taking a gamble that his conviction on his strategy will ultimately persuade doubters to vote for him. But that seems to be a pretty risky gamble, considering the public perception of the deteriorating situation on the ground. Maybe he's thinking the Al Fallujah model of dealing with insurgents can be scaled to the rest of the country. I'm kind of at a loss at the moment. What are some of your opinions?”

“mutt - see the GW's Speach (sic) Thread.”

“Thanks Violin.”