Posted on 05/21/2004 12:55:55 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
General Richard Myers, the most senior US military leader, on Friday defended Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, saying the organisation had helped save American lives in Iraq.
His comments came just 24 hours after Iraqi police, backed by US soldiers, raided the home of Mr Chalabi, once the Bush administration's top candidate to lead Iraq, as part of a corruption investigation involving INC officials and associates.
President George W. Bush is due to give a major policy speech on Monday outlining a "clear strategy" on Iraq amid plans to hand over sovereignty to a caretaker government on June 30.
Trent Duffy, White House spokesman, said: "We are approaching a pivotal phase as we approach the June 30 transfer.
"The president looks forward, on Monday evening, to discussing with the American people and with a global audience a clear strategy on how we need to move forward."
Thursday's raid appeared to be a final break between Mr Chalabi and his former US patrons.
But Gen Myers defended the INC, saying its military intelligence had been "useful and accurate" during the year-long occupation.
"The organisation that he is associated with has provided intelligence to our intelligence unit there in Baghdad that has saved soldiers' lives," he told a congressional committee.
Gen Myers' comments reflect the personal support that Mr Chalabi enjoys in some sections of the administration, particularly the Pentagon. However, this support has been overriden by the importance attached to the political process by Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, and Lakhdar Brahimi, United Nations special envoy to Iraq. To them, Mr Chalabi has come to be seen as an obstacle to UN plans to form a caretaker government to assume sovereignty.
US officials continued to insist on Friday that they played only a passive role in Thursday's raid, and there were no US military, intelligence, or investigative personnel involved in the search of INC homes and offices.
Dan Senor, spokesman for the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, said any plainclothes Americans who were on the scene were civilian contractors who work for the Iraqi ministry of interior. He said: "Their job is the professionalisation of the Iraqi police service. So they were there to observe and advise the Iraqi police during this operation, as they do on numerous operations. They are the only non-Iraqis, to my understanding, that were there."
This is the truth about the fall of Chalabi.
We wouldn't want his investigations into Saddam's Oil-for-Palaces scandal to remind everyone how the UN sided against us for profit and has no business choosing a new government for the nation they helped keep in slavery for so many years.
US out, UN in?
Isn't that the Dennis Kucinich platform?
Ping
How about the fact that a source is saying there is Rock Solid evidence that he was conspiring with the Iranians?
My source is General Myers, who is your source?
Foxnews.
"senior government officials." Bah. If the source is the Clintonista Tenet CIA or pro-UN Powell's State Department, then it can't be trusted. The only source I have read named in the press for this is Scott Ritter, who is implicated in UN oil for food.
Has Tenet ever had a single success? Has he ever been right about anything? Bush should fire this worthless Clinton debris.
"Rock solid"? Let me guess: Anonymous source; oh, and it's a 'slam dunk' too I suppose.
Nah, I'll take Genl Meyers over Mr Anonymous Source.
Tailgunner Joe speaks the truth. Chalabi has saved American lives and helped catch saddam and other thugs. we should be thankful for that, but we're not, because certain Dept of State functionaries prefer pettiness as a guide to diplomacy than strategic thinking.
Now I'll be the first to say cut him loose if he really was working with Iranians, but there is so much contra-indications of deeper motives here, I have my doubts.
Rumsfeld didnt even *know* about this raid. the US military was not involved.
Chalabi is the skunk at the garden party, blowing the cover on UN malfeasance and a UN 'plan' that is a step backwards for Iraqi sovereignty and harms our interests overall. We, alas, are going to the UN in the vain hope of getting 'legitimacy' to our overall effort from the thug-loving Governments who dont like freedom anyway.
Dittos on your comments tailgunner.
It seems clear that in the political infighting over Iraq, the wrong guys keep winning. And I dont mean the Baathists.
I mean the arabist state dept minions who dont trust democratic forces in Iraq.
So let me get this straight, Gen Myers speaking on one half of the equation while other "unkown sources" are speaking on the other side of the equation. Rather than take a wait and see approach he is automatically innocent and forever innocent because he helped take out Saddam so therefore even if he was a spy for Iran its forgiveable? You know Kerry served in Vietnam so therefore according to logic expressed here he should be innocent of all claims and accusations he made afterwards because at one time he was a good guy.
I am not fully ready to condemn the man, but I am not going to excuse him either.
I'm with you guys regarding Chalabi.
If the State Dept, Tenet's CIA, and UN sympathizers are against him -- and if Al-Jazeera reports this 'bust' as a good thing -- then I am inclined to be FOR him.
Plus, I've read his writings over several years. He seems like just the kind of person we want leading Iraq: smart, thoughtful, educated -- and yes, somewhat of a political leader. He's made some powerful enemies. And by those enemies we may know him -- as a basically good man.
For a bit of balance, see Rich Lowry in today's NRO:
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/rubin/rubin200405210849.asp
Myers was talking about the INC, not Chalabi specifically. So...relax Francis.
It's not just Al-Jazeera, the liberal media is absolutely ecstatic about this.
Most of them were against him from the beginning, just like the CIA and DOS. Most were against this war too, and only too happy to believe Bush was duped by a neo-con-man.
"For a bit of balance, see Rich Lowry in today's NRO:"
I appreciate the link, but it took me to an article on Chalabi by Michael Rubin, not Rich Lowry. Do you have a link to the Lowry article or was this a typo-goof?
See also this ...
David Frum's Diary (NRO)
MAY. 4, 2004: THE CHALABI SMEAR
Really, if the CIA and State Department fought this country’s enemies with even one-half the ferocity with which they have waged war on Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress, the United States would be a vastly safer place. Yesterday, the agencies launched their latest offensive against this leader they so detest: They leaked Mark Hosenball of Newsweek a story claiming that Chalabi has betrayed US interests to the Iranians.
“U.S. intelligence agencies have recently raised concerns that Chalabi has become too close to Iran's theocratic rulers. NEWSWEEK has learned that top Bush administration officials have been briefed on intelligence indicating that Chalabi and some of his top aides have supplied Iran with ‘sensitive’ information on the American occupation in Iraq. U.S. officials say that electronic intercepts of discussions between Iranian leaders indicate that Chalabi and his entourage told Iranian contacts about American political plans in Iraq. There are also indications that Chalabi has provided details of U.S. security operations. According to one U.S. government source, some of the information Chalabi turned over to Iran could ‘get people killed.’ (A Chalabi aide calls the allegations ‘absolutely false.’)”
You have to give credit where credit is due: This is an audacious accusation. Audacious because it demands that the State Department’s and CIA’s cheering sections in the media perform a cult-like reversal of belief in everything they were saying about Iraq, Iran, and Chalabi himself up until now.
But those of us with memories that extend back beyond the past 24 hours will have some questions for Newsweek and its sources:
ITEM: Up until now we were supposed to believe that the INC produced no useful intelligence – that it dealt only in fantasies and lies. Now suddenly the INC is accused of being in possession of accurate and valuable sensitive information. How did Chalabi go from know-nothing to valuable intelligence asset overnight?
ITEM: A government source says that the security information Chalabi may or may not have provided could “get people killed.” Get them killed by whom? Up until now, the CIA and State Department have resolutely refused to acknowledge that Iran might be supporting the insurgency in Iraq. Now they are willing to admit reality – but only in order to use it against what they perceive as the real threat: Chalabi.
ITEM: Chalabi has been caught talking on the phone to the Iranians. But wait – hasn’t the State Department been arguing for months that the US should talk to the Iranians about Iraq? In testimony to Congress in October 2003, State number 2 Richard Armitage explicitly disavowed regime change in Iran and called for discussions with Iran on “appropriate” issues. In January 2004, Secretary of State Powell openly called for “dialogue” – and the Bush administration offered to send Elizabeth Dole and a member of the president’s own family to deliver earthquake aid to Iran. (The British sent Prince Charles.) Since then, the hinting and suggesting have grown ever more explicit. What, pray, is the difference between the policy Chalabi is pursuing and that which his State Department critics want the US to pursue?
ITEM: Chalabi is now accused of playing a “double game” in Iraqi politics, an offense for which he must forfeit all rights to a role in Iraq’s future. This “no double game” rule is a new and impressive standard for judging our allies in the Arab Middle East. Question: Will that same standard apply to those former Republican Guard generals whom the State Department is now so assiduously promoting? Will it apply to the former Baathists that Lakhdar Brahimi wishes to include in the provisional Iraqi government? Will it apply to Lakhdar Brahimi himself? Will it apply to the Saudi royal family? Will it apply to the Iranians? Or is it only Ahmed Chalabi who must swear undeviating loyalty to the US policy-of-the-day in Iraq?
ITEM: Salon magazine last night published a lengthy attack on Chalabi by John Dizard. In it, former Chalabi business partner Marc Zell calls Chalabi a “treacherous, spineless turncoat,” for failing to deliver on Chalabi’s alleged promises to open Iraq to trade with Israel. I don’t know that these promises were ever made – and if made, I wonder whether Chalabi ever suggested that they would rank first on a new Iraqi government’s list of priorities. But never mind that: Chalabi has not exercised executive power in Iraq for even a single day. How exactly was it ever possible that he would carry out any promise about anything to anyone?
Ahmed Chalabi no doubt has many faults. I have never been easy in my mind about the collapse of the bank he ran in Jordan back in 1989. (Although the charges that Chalabi himself stole money from the bank are not very convincing either.) But I do know this: Chalabi is one of the very few genuine liberal democrats to be found at the head of any substantial political organization anywhere in the Arab world. He is not consumed by paranoid fantasies, he understands and admires the American system, and he is willing to work with the United States if the United States will work for him. He risked his life through the 1990s to topple Saddam Hussein, which is more than can be said about any of State's or CIA's preferred candidates for power in Iraq. Compared to anybody other possible leader of Iraq – compared to just about every other political leader in the Arab world – the imperfect Ahmed Chalabi is nonetheless a James bleeping Madison.
And maybe that’s exactly why he is so very unpopular with so many of the local thugs and tyrants who unfortunately command the attention of America’s spies and diplomats.
Your article about Bremer is confirmed or coincides with very similar article by Amir Tahernia.
.... "He scuttled Jay Garner's desire for early sovereignty. In late July, Bremer vetoed a Governing Council proposal to create a prime minister, saying that this might undercut his power. Fearing any challenge to his authority, Bremer gave a series of condescending radio addresses mocked by Iraqis. Rather than promote the new generation of Iraqi politicians, Bremer put himself at the center of press attention. For example, Bremer decided that he, rather than an Iraqi official, would announce the new Iraqi currency. "
This is really sad, just SAD... we have missed a huge window of opportunity in the last 12 months. We COULD HAVE remade Iraq very much in our image *if* we quickly moved to create a 'pro-American' Iraqi power structure. Now, instead, Bremer has spent 12 months chipping away at anyone in leadership positions for his own aggrandizement.
see post #17.
There is a track record of false and self-interested allegations being made by those who oppose true Iraqi democracy and this particular Iraqi democrat in particular.
You act like Bush couldn't make Bremer do whatever he wanted him to do. Whatever Bremer does, he does with Bush's acceptance.
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