Posted on 05/25/2004 1:20:46 PM PDT by RandyAndy
Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday May 25, 2004
The Guardian
An urgent investigation has been launched in Washington into whether Iran played a role in manipulating the US into the Iraq war by passing on bogus intelligence through Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, it emerged yesterday.
Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq.
According to a US intelligence official, the CIA has hard evidence that Mr Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, passed US secrets to Tehran, and that Mr Habib has been a paid Iranian agent for several years, involved in passing intelligence in both directions.
The CIA has asked the FBI to investigate Mr Chalabi's contacts in the Pentagon to discover how the INC acquired sensitive information that ended up in Iranian hands.
The implications are far-reaching. Mr Chalabi and Mr Habib were the channels for much of the intelligence on Iraqi weapons on which Washington built its case for war.
"It's pretty clear that Iranians had us for breakfast, lunch and dinner," said an intelligence source in Washington yesterday. "Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the US for several years through Chalabi."
Larry Johnson, a former senior counter-terrorist official at the state department, said: "When the story ultimately comes out we'll see that Iran has run one of the most masterful intelligence operations in history. They persuaded the US and Britain to dispose of its greatest enemy." [... article continues]
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Oh, come on, think about it... We were going to invade Iraq whatever the INC told us. But because of INC misinformation, the entire world mistrusts us, we are in political trouble, and we *are* talking about letting Shiites run things.
Well yes, that's my point: It is nonsense for Iran to have "trapped" us into acquiring a military infrastructure next door.
Has there been ANY OFFICIAL STATEMENT by the United States of America on this story. What I see is mostly and maybe exclusively unnamed sources from the "Intelligence Community". That is not worth much but it is being given a lot of play.
I smell a rat.
FoxNews had a summary on the Libya nuke partnership breakdown this last weekend. Loftus was giving his summary as well.
When the uranium hexafluoride story broke this weekend past, Loftus said the ends are nearly tidied up.
Stay tuned.
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