Posted on 05/20/2004 10:57:27 PM PDT by Piranha
Someday we hope U.S. officials will explain to us how in scarcely a year they managed to turn one of our closest allies in ousting Saddam Hussein into an opponent of American purposes. We're referring to Ahmed Chalabi, the member of the Iraqi Governing Council whose home and office were raided by coalition forces yesterday in Baghdad.
**************SNIP****************
Mr. Chalabi blamed a political vendetta inspired by U.S. regent L. Paul Bremer. And he claimed the police were hunting for records related to the U.N.'s corrupt Oil for Food Program that he's been investigating. His ties with the coalition are now "non-existent," the businessman and former exile added.
We don't know enough of the facts to take sides. But we certainly think Mr. Chalabi deserves the benefit of the doubt, especially in light of his treatment by many U.S. officials over the past year. Some reporters still refer to him as the Pentagon's "favorite" to rule Iraq. If that's true we'd hate to see what happens to a non-favorite.
He's been vilified repeatedly in background quotes by U.S. "sources," especially by State Department and CIA officials who won't forgive him for opposing their status quo views of Saddam and the Mideast. **************SNIP*****************
What makes all of this hostility even stranger is that Mr. Chalabi shares the U.S. goal of building a free and democratic Iraq. He was a driving force behind most of the good things the Governing Council has accomplished--especially the privatization law and the interim constitution that is the most liberal in the Arab world. His behind-the-scenes prodding has broken open the Oil for Food scandal that could easily have been hushed up to protect the U.N.
We have no idea if Mr. Chalabi is the right man to run Iraq in the future, but his mistreatment is emblematic of the larger U.S. mistake of not putting more trust in Iraqis to govern themselves. Coalition officials deride Mr. Chalabi and others as "exiles" who lack a popular following in Iraq--as if anyone who actively opposed Saddam could have survived anywhere except in exile. Fighting for Saddam's ouster throughout the 1990s, despite little U.S. interest and at some personal risk, might even be considered an act of patriotism.
There's no doubt Mr. Chalabi has personal political ambitions, but so what? Isn't open and democratic political competition what we want for Iraq? By deriding Mr. Chalabi and other "exiles," the U.S. has helped to create a vacuum that many non-democrats are eager to fill.
Iranian cash is pouring in to support more radical Shiite leaders than the secular Shiite Mr. Chalabi. And Jordan's King Abdullah tipped his hand earlier this week by suggesting that what Iraq needs now is another strongman, preferably some Baathist or Sunni general who could impose a little order in the usual Mideast manner. By the way, the King dislikes Mr. Chalabi and is a promoter of Mr. Brahimi. The thought of other Middle Eastern rulers assailing Mr. Chalabi for corruption is also amusing.
One other irony, we suppose, is that yesterday's coalition raid might actually help Mr. Chalabi in political terms. It should certainly free him of any taint of being an American puppet. With Mr. Brahimi likely to freeze him out after June 30, Mr. Chalabi will be able to devote himself to building a party to run in the elections currently scheduled for January 2005. It's no compliment to our work in Iraq that we may have turned opposition to America into an Iraqi political asset.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Neocon Lets Cat Out of Bag
Robert Dreyfuss
May 19, 2004
Michael Rubin—a young staffer at the American Enterprise Institute who’s just left the Pentagon, where he played a small role as a neocon cog in the Office of Special Plans war machine—let a herd of cats out of the bag about his favorite Iraqi phony, Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress.
Chalabi, of course, is the roly-poly perpetrator of intelligence fraud and the convicted bank embezzler who still hopes to be leader of Iraq. Lately, Chalabi has scuttled into a would-be alliance with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the scowly fatwa man. In doing so, he’s had the temerity to criticize the United States, leading some fuzzy thinkers to believe that Chalabi, whose puppet strings are made of steel, might be trying to show some independence from Washington. Well, says Rubin, who served as one the Pentagon’s liaisons to Chalabi, that’s exactly what they want you to think:
“Much of the information he collected was to roll up the insurgency and Ba'athist cells. It caught people red-handed," said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser who is now at a conservative think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute.
"By telegraphing that he is not the favorite son of America, the administration will bolster him, showing he is his own man."
In other words, it’s all a big con game. The still-neocon-dominated Pentagon—which this week stopped funding Chalabi’s INC —is playing its last card, hoping that it can boost Chalabi’s sagging fortunes by pretending to sever ties with him. That, the neocons hope, will allow Chalabi to strengthen his ties to Sistani, the king-making mullah who, they hope, holds Iraq’s fate in his wrinkled hands.
FWIW, my guess is that Chalabi tried to pull a fast one and somebody showed him that nobody is indispensable.
"Someday we hope U.S. officials will explain to us how in scarcely a year they managed to turn one of our closest allies in ousting Saddam Hussein into an opponent of American purposes."
Or, how it was that Chalabi turned the US against him by working against us.
Just cynical and "realpolitik" enough to be feasible.
the oil-for-food investigation may be the key issue here. He was apparently running an investigation which would show all sorts of folks were getting paid off by this. There is NO way the US is going to release records showing such a long list of sitting government officials of other countries were on the take. Presumably the info will be used as bargaining material for concessions from the parties involved. The sheeple will not have the illusion of government saintliness tarnished.
Too bad he was passing info to the enemy....
oh well.
Oil for food is the issue all right.
Let's connect some dots.
Oil for Food blows, all sorts are in deep trouble.
The Pentagon has been fighting State over influence in Iraq.
State's friends are all caught in the Oil for Food scandal.
Seymour Hersch suddenly has lot's of info about Abu Gharib and the media go mad.
Result. Pentagon out of favour, State back on top. Oil for Food off radar, State's friends in the clear.
I never thought about it that way.
That's a very interesting theory. What makes you think that Hersh has close alliances with State/CIA sources?
Just pure guessing.
But the abuse story was known back in January and went nowhere. Yet now it is everywhere and the Oil for Food scandal nowhere.
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