Polygraph Testing Starts at Pentagon in Chalabi Inquiry

WASHINGTON, June 2 — Federal investigators have begun administering polygraph examinations to civilian employees at the Pentagon to determine who may have disclosed highly classified intelligence to Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi who authorities suspect turned the information over to Iran, government officials said Wednesday.

The polygraph examinations, which are being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are focused initially on a small number of Pentagon employees who had access to the information that was compromised. American intelligence officials have said that Mr. Chalabi informed Iran that the United States had broken the secret codes used by Iranian intelligence to transmit confidential messages to posts around the world.

Mr. Chalabi has denied the charge. On Wednesday, his lawyers made public a letter they said they had sent to Attorney General John Ashcroft and F.B.I. Director Robert S. Mueller III repeating Mr. Chalabi's denials and demanding that the Justice Department investigate the disclosure of the accusations against Mr. Chalabi.

The lawyers, John J. E. Markham II and Collette C. Goodman, said in the letter, "The charges made against Dr. Chalabi — both the general and the specific ones are false."

They also said, "We ask that you undertake an immediate investigation to find and hold accountable those who are responsible for these false leaks."

Officials would not identify who has taken polygraph examinations or even who has been interviewed by F.B.I. counterespionage agents. It could not be determined whether anyone has declined to submit to a polygraph test.

No one has been charged with any wrongdoing or identified as a suspect, but officials familiar with the investigation say that they are working through a list of people and are likely to interview senior Pentagon officials.

The F.B.I. is looking at officials who both knew of the code-breaking operation and had dealings with Mr. Chalabi, either in Washington or Baghdad, the government officials said. Information about code-breaking work is considered among the most confidential material in the government and is handled under tight security and with very limited access.

But a wider circle of officials could have inferred from intelligence reports about Iran that the United States had access to the internal communications of Iran's spy service, intelligence officials said. That may make it difficult to identify the source of any leak.

Government officials say they started the investigation of Pentagon officials after learning that Mr. Chalabi had told the Baghdad station chief of Iran's intelligence service that the United States was reading their communications. Mr. Chalabi, American officials say, gave the information to the Iranians about six weeks ago, apparently because he wanted to ensure that his secret conversations with the Iranians were not revealed to the Americans.

But the Iranian official apparently did not immediately believe Mr. Chalabi, because he sent a cable back to Tehran detailing his conversation with Mr. Chalabi, American officials said. That cable was intercepted and read by the United States, the officials said.

Mr. Chalabi and his supporters argue that the accusations against him are part of a C.I.A.-inspired campaign to discredit him. His backers have been dismayed that the Bush administration recently divorced itself from Mr. Chalabi and his group, the Iraqi National Congress. They contend that the move was instigated by the C.I.A., which they say is now wielding intercepted Iranian communications as a weapon against Mr. Chalabi.

Richard N. Perle, the former chairman of the Defense Policy Board and an influential Chalabi supporter, said Wednesday that the notion that Mr. Chalabi would compromise the American code-breaking operation "doesn't pass the laugh test." Mr. Perle said it was more plausible that the Iranians, knowing already that the United States was reading its communications, planted the damning information about Mr. Chalabi to persuade Washington to distance itself from Mr. Chalabi.

"The whole thing hinges on the idea that the Baghdad station chief of the MOIS commits one of the most amazing trade craft errors I've ever heard of," Mr. Perle said, referring to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security. He said it defied belief that a seasoned intelligence operative would disclose a conversation with Mr. Chalabi using the same communications channel that he had just been warned was compromised.

"You have to believe that the station chief blew a gift from the gods because of rank incompetence," Mr. Perle said. "I don't believe it, and I don't think any other serious intelligence professional would either."

Mr. Chalabi is not a focus of the inquiry, but senior law enforcement officials said he could be investigated in the future. They said a decision on that could be left to the new Iraqi government.

In the 1990's, the Iraqi National Congress was part of a C.I.A. covert action program designed to undermine Saddam Hussein's rule. But Mr. Chalabi had a falling out with the C.I.A., and agency officials concluded that he was untrustworthy. He subsequently forged an alliance with major conservative Republicans in Washington. When President Bush took office, Mr. Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress were embraced by senior policy makers at the Pentagon, which became his main point of contact in the American government.

In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Mr. Markham, one of Mr. Chalabi's lawyers, said that Mr. Chalabi had been subjected to increasing "adverse comments" by American officials as his disagreements with the Bush administration over the future of Iraq had intensified. Nevertheless, Mr. Markham said, Mr. Chalabi "is very happy to come to the United States to appear before Congress or be interviewed by legitimate investigative agents in this matter."

The lawyers' letter said that "Dr. Chalabi would never endanger the national security of the U.S."

"Those responsible for such leaks, however, we submit are the same individuals within the U.S. government who have undermined the President's policies in Iraq and efforts to bring democracy and stability to that country, and are using Dr. Chalabi as a scapegoat for their own failures that have cost this country dearly in the past year in Iraq," the letter said.

Last month, American and Iraqi forces raided Mr. Chalabi's Baghdad compound and carted away computers, overturned furniture and ransacked his offices. The raid was said to be part of an investigation into charges that Mr. Chalabi's aides, including a leading lieutenant, had been involved in kidnapping, torture, embezzlement and corruption in Iraq. It is still unclear what the connection might be between that raid and the continuing counterintelligence investigation of the possible leaks of secrets to Iran.

The "official" story doesn't pass the smell test.

1) Someone in the U.S. government would have to have been stupid enough to leak sensitive compartmented information to Chalabi, without any reasonable motive for doing so.

2) Chalabi would have had to have been stupid enough to tell the Iranians, knowing full well that the U.S. had compromised them and would almost certainly find out he told them.

3) Iran's Baghdad station chief would have had to have been stupid enough to send a warning that the communications had been compromised over the very same channels that were supposedly compromised. This alone is incredible, even if he didn't believe the codes had been compromised.

4) The U.S. government would have had to have been stupid enough to leak this whole story to the world, knowing that doing so would compromise all sorts of aspects of our intelligence operations in Iraq and Iran.

While it is possible that all these people are really that stupid, I consider it highly unlikely, if not flat out impossible.

The only reason the world knows about this is because the U.S. government wants us to know. This is some sort of op.

I suspect it may have something to do with publicly distancing Chalabi from the U.S., but it seems there is much more to this than meets the public eye.

The timing is interesting, since it seems to have shut Chalabi out of the interim government, and quite deliberately so.

As usual, we'll probably never know the real story behind all this. One thing I am certain of: we're not being told the real story.

Remember that President Bush-----as a bona fide conservative----values loyalty----as all of us conservatives do.

So if Bush is hanging him out to dry, we can be very sure conman Chalabi is as dirty as the evidence says he is.

Conservatives should be PO'ed at those who are abandoning President Bush by defending Chalabi, ever since Bush told Chalabi to go take a hike.

No true conservative would abandon a president in time of war, because conservatives know that a president, alone, bears the responsibility for protecting the lives and liberties of Americans from harm, and from foreign and domestic instigators like Chalabi.

Don't trust ANYBODY from that whole half of the world!

Socialistic Darwinism---survival of the fittest---is the only law of the land in the Mideast swamp. The most cunning and depraved individuals survive by back-stabbing the weak.

Denizens of the Mideast cessspool crawl the globe as agents, double agents and triple agents who change sides without batting an eyelash, when the price is right.

"Uriah Heep" Chalabi was running the classic "Intelligence for sale" scam. Early on Chalabi was tagged as a peddler hawking self-serving information who was obsessed with his own financial interests. US taxpayers contributed at least $40 million US tax dollars---- $340,000 a month to Chalabi and his gang until the president stopped it.

Chalabi, convicted of embezzlement in Jordan, was an Iraqi (who hadn't been in the country for 50 years), who wanted to replace Saddam, and take power, no matter what it took. The real crime is why anyone bought into his con game.

The facts were secondary. Chalabi made them up as he went along. When the US military in Iraq went looking for the humint on the ground Chalabi claimed to have, they could not be found.

Still the agit-prop for Chalabi continues. Perle keeps beating the drums for Chalabi like Ricky Ricardo pounding out a frantic rendition of Bablu. Aiyiyiyi.

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