Chalabi Told you so

Dee Illuminati never liked Chalabi and blogged critically back on NetTrustCentral about this clown, questioned the pre-war "unintelligence" and came to the realization that sucking up to a politician was what the intel field was about, really.. this is sad.

Chalabi's Star Rises Again with Iranian Intrigues in Baghdad
By Jeff Stein | October 29, 2008 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ahmed Chalabi, the erstwhile Iraqi exile who intrigued with Pentagon officials and the media to create a casus belli for toppling Saddam Hussein, is up to his old tricks.

Chalabi's star plunged when it turned out Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, as the steady stream of informants he served up to the U.S. media maintained.

After the 2003 occupation, the crafty Shiite's effort to play a leading, if not top, role in Iraqi politics ended in humility when he won few votes at the polls. He did snag fleeting positions, as a deputy prime minister, oil minister and then the official in charge of rebuilding the capital's utilities.

But in part because of suspicions that he was an Iranian secret agent, U.S. defense officials, American commanders in Iraq, and even his neoconservative champions began to shun him.

A Pentagon investigation did not end in charges being filed, but in May, NBC reported that U.S. officials had "cut off all contact with controversial Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi, the former favorite of Washington's once powerful neoconservatives," because of "unauthorized contacts with Iran's government."

Chalabi faded from the international spotlight, but now he's back in action big time, says Aram Roston, an NBC investigative reporter and author of "The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi."

Roston calls Chalabi a "key figure" in Iranian efforts to scuttle the status-of-forces agreement that is under fierce negotiation between Baghdad and Washington.

"He is seen more and more by the U.S. as a foreign agent, an Iranian agent," Roston told me by telephone from Mexico, where he is vacationing. What Chalabi says is "equated" with the Iranian position on the status-of-forces agreement, Roston said, which it opposes.

During a visit to Iran in September, Chalabi said the agreement would be used by the U.S. to establish "secret bases" in Iraq. That allegation, and other unpopular items in it, such as exempting U.S. citizens from prosecution in Iraqi courts, has made it increasingly unpopular.


[Update: The U.S. raid into Syria last weekend has also generated Iraqi demands that the agreement include a prohibition on U.S. forces launching attacks on other countries -- read: Iran -- from Iraqi soil.]

Just yesterday, Oct. 28, a conservative Shiite newspaper in Baghdad featured Chalabi's opposition to the agreement, which has to be signed by Dec. 31 or the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq will be illegal. The U.S. has threatened to cut off aid.

"This time represents a black page in the country's history," Chalabi told Al Bayyna Al Jadidah, according to a translation provided to Roston by an Iraqi contact.

"Chalabi is influential," Roston said, not just because he's "backed by Iran," but also because top Iraqi Shia politicians "view him as someone who understands the Americans, that he has the wisdom to know what's going on in their minds."

For years, Chalabi was a fixture in Washington's corridors of power.

"He is a genius," Roston observed, "at staying relevant."

Now my point is this, all the bandwagon folks who now see this guy for what he is, well if you had gone "on the record" before the debacle, not after.. I could respect you.. but for the ass-covering swing in the wind types, those who thought, "hell lets not allow facts to stand in the way of our convictions" well now this is the outcome, an outcome consistent with what would be expected from Chalabi.

Debacle, miserable failure, yes a debacle.. sort of like the operations name where Saddam grabbed a cell phone and then wipped out a group who had been encouraged to uprise.. yes a "debacle." That term is appropo.

I agree with the comment:

When the war started Chalabi now in Iraq was busted giving the Iranians U.S. military codes. American troops raided his house and confiscated his computers. Somehow this guy manages to not be arrested as an enemy combatant. This guy is our enemy. There is no one person more responsible for the debacle we are in than this guy. ( other than shortsighted Bush administration that got duped into this war )

Now here he is proving all this to be true working with the Iranians in plain sight. The only reason I can see we don't kill or capture this guy is that it will expose this administration as being fooled into the biggest debacle in foreign policy and American military history.

This continues today. The Iraqi's are about to tell us to get out of their country. The biggest reason the "surge'" is supposedly working is not because of the extra troops, but because of Al Sadr's ( Shiite ) cease fire. When he called it off breifly earlier this year violence increased dramatically. When the cease fire was back on violence dropped.

Al Sadr who is tight with Iran will wait it out. When we leave we will have left a Shiite majority democracy on the doorstep of our enemies Shiite theocracy.

I wonder if they will send us a thank you card.

Death to Chalabi!


I can only say that I genuinely believe that Joe Biden is incapable of a mistake of this magnitude, that take your pick:

after 9/11, Bush asked Americans to go shopping,

The Frum "axis if evil speech" as if you leave foreign policy to Frum,

The pre-war intel debacle with the tortured confession that Powell put in a bucket and carried to the UN,

General Shinseki fired by Rumsfeld and his stooges,

Paul O'Neill fired.
Ashccroft fired.
Gonzalez promoted.

GITMO, and then the defining moment of the debacle and miserable failure that these last eight years have been:

There has been:

JEDDAH, 16 November 2005 — Liz Cheney, US deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs and daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, said that it is part of her job to correct the perceptions about her country and its policies because these perceptions hurt America’s image abroad.

She claims that the rumors about torture in American prisons are untrue,

So nepotism and either incompetence or lying folowed by:

When UPI's Pam Hess asked about torture by Iraqi authorities, Rumsfeld replied that "obviously, the United States does not have a responsibility" other than to voice disapproval.

But Pace had a different view. "It is the absolute responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene, to stop it," the general said.

Rumsfeld interjected: "I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it."

But Pace meant what he said. "If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it," he said, firmly.

Yeah Frum with the axis of evil and Rumsfeld.. pretending to be a professional soldier.

And then the illegal wire-tapping,

David Walker quits

Collapse in the markets.. I could go on and on but

And where are we at now?

This Chalabi asshole now working directly with Iran...

Incompetence and stupidity ought to be culpable.

Instead we get to vote.

I cannot imagine voting Republican