[Mb-civic] One More Chalabi Black Eye Robert Scheer

[Michael Butler]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-scheer10aug10.story

ROBERT SCHEER

One More Chalabi Black Eye
 Robert Scheer

 August 10, 2004

 In January, when President Bush delivered his State of the Union speech to
Congress celebrating the success of the "preemptive" war against Iraq, a
controversial Iraqi exile named Ahmad Chalabi sat in a place of honor behind
First Lady Laura Bush.

 The symbolism was no accident: Despite being a fugitive from Jordan for a
conviction in absentia on bank fraud charges, this darling of
neoconservative hard-liners was the Pentagon's and White House's favored and
well-paid advisor on all things Iraq ‹ including weapons of mass
destruction, ties with Al Qaeda and the odds for a post-invasion insurgency.
As is now apparent, he and his cronies seemed to have lied spectacularly
about it all. 

 Then, as part of the invasion in 2003, Chalabi and a ragtag militia were
flown into Iraq at U.S. taxpayer expense. Soon he was appointed by the
U.S.-led coalition authority to the Iraqi Governing Council, and his power
was enhanced as relatives and members of the organization he headed, the
Iraq National Congress, were appointed to key ministries.

 When his nephew Salem was named the lead prosecutor of Saddam Hussein, it
appeared clear that despite polls showing him to be the least trusted
politician in Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi was doing quite well for himself. Salem
bragged on his law firm's website that through his influence, foreign
investors could profitably participate in Iraq's $75-billion reconstruction
effort. 

 Today, however, it is hard to imagine that anybody would want to be in
Ahmad Chalabi's shoes ‹ or those of the many top officials of Bush's White
House, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who so assiduously
backed him. The story reads like a trashy summer spy novel: Over the weekend
while he was at his vacation home in Iran ‹ you know, one of the "axis of
evil" countries that actually has a nuclear weapons program ‹ Chalabi was
charged with counterfeiting by a U.S.- appointed judge in Iraq. Salem, in
London at the moment, was charged with murder. The elder Chalabi is also
still being investigated by U.S. intelligence agencies for his possible role
in passing top-secret data to Iran.

 For those keeping score at home, that's two indicted Chalabis, one huge
black eye for the Bush administration and a healthy dose of vindication for
the CIA and the State Department, both of which decided long ago that Ahmad
Chalabi wasn't trustworthy and strongly objected to his being tapped as a
handy George Washington for "liberated" Iraq.

 Both Chalabis are declaring their innocence. Steady Chalabi defenders, led
by New York Times columnist William Safire, and Ahmad Chalabi himself claim
that all his problems stem from a vendetta by L. Paul Bremer III, the
recently departed U.S. administrator of occupied Iraq. Could that possibly
explain why Chalabi, once the U.S. invasion's loudest Iraqi backer, is now
calling on fundamentalist Shiites to expel the Americans?

 Ahmad Chalabi may be able to defend himself against these latest fraud
charges, but that will hardly clear his name. His strong and continuing ties
to Tehran and allegations that he has spied for Iran raise a very serious
question few seem eager to confront: Was Our Man Chalabi a double agent
working for the theocratic ayatollahs when he helped lobby and lie the
United States into overthrowing Hussein, Iran's despotic but secular enemy?

 And beyond Chalabi, why did it so thoroughly escape the Bush administration
and much of the media that in deposing the secular Sunni tyrant Hussein we
would open the door for the Iraqi Shiite majority to create its own regime ‹
one that would most likely be sympathetic to Shiite Iran not only for
religious reasons but because many of its new leaders had been sheltered,
armed and financially supported by Tehran when they were in exile.

 How ironic that a close alliance between Iraq and the fanatical ayatollahs
of Iran is the most likely accomplishment of the U.S. invasion. That would
lend credence to the claim in a revealing Newsweek cover story on Ahmad
Chalabi's checkered past that "the Bushies were bamboozled by a
Machiavellian con man for the ages."

 Of course, if we reelect this president, then we'll be the dumbest marks of
all.


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