Posted on 11/03/2015 3:39:47 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Ahmed Chalabi, the smooth-talking Iraqi politician who pushed Washington to invade Iraq in 2003 with discredited information on Saddam Hussein's military capabilities, died on Tuesday of an apparent heart attack.
Haitham al-Jabouri, secretary of parliament's financial panel that Chalabi had chaired, said attendants had found him dead in his bed in his Baghdad home. A news flash on Iraqi state television said the cause was a heart attack.
A secular Shi'ite, Chalabi rose to prominence as leader of the then-exiled Iraqi National Congress, which played a major role in encouraging the U.S. administration of former President George W. Bush to invade Iraq and oust Saddam.
"There are some people who will remember him in a good way, and there are others, to be honest, do not like and did not want his politics," said former prime minister Ayad Allawi.
"But regardless, Iraq lost a man who had an important contribution, important commitments towards the nation and he tried to offer what he could to this country."
Chalabi, born in 1944 into a wealthy Baghdad family, returned to Iraq shortly after Saddam's fall, the culmination of years of work abroad pressing and charming Washington to oust the man who ruled Iraq with an iron fist for decades.
He ultimately succeeded by persuading the United States that Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda and possessed weapons of mass destruction in the wake of the September 11 attacks, claims that later proved unfounded.
After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, he could often be seen in Baghdad flanked by dozens of bodyguards as he forged ties with political figures and powerful clerics.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Rot in hell.
Good, I’m glad he’s dead, the only sad thing is that it didn’t happen 15 years ago before Chalabi lied us into a needless war for his personal gain, the fools in the national security apparatus believed him, and we lost 4,400 of our best and bravest young men and women, countless others maimed for life, and trillions spent for what?
As time goes on, it gets easier and easier to envision a scenario where Chalabi was basically an Iranian agent collaborating with the U.S. government to eliminate Iran’s neighboring strongman.
I think you hit it right on target; Chalabi got the Americans to spend our best in life and treasure to overthrow the major impediment in Iraq (Saddam, bad as he was) to Iranian dominance of the Persian Gulf, then basically turn over what’s left to the thieves, liars and murderous mountebanks in Tehran while personally profiting from the whole disaster he orchestrated based on lies, deceit and a few frontmen doing his bidding in the West.
He was supposed to have been the first post-Saddam president of Iraq, since he was a buddy of Wolfowitz and his DoD cabal. Problem was when he marched off that U.S. transport plane in his black fatigues and small security cohort., nobody in Iraq wanted him because he was a crook and a coward.
Died of a heart attack.
I would not be disappointed to hear that the paramedics took a coffee break on the way to get him.
Is this the guy who had his 14 year-old daughter tearfully lie to Congress that she had seen Iraqi soldiers come in to the hospital to take babies out of incubators?
This
Saddam Hussein had repeatedly broken the peace agreement of the Gulf War.
Even Kerry and Clinton were advocating war against Saddam in 1998.
Will Sidney Blumenthal get this headline regarding our war against Libya when Sid dies???
Who’s the money man behind Sid’s lobbying? How much of it did Hillary get?
He didn't control DC which is why he is not solely to blame. Plenty of people inside the beltway at the time were looking for an excuse--similar to what we've been seeing with Syria. He, "Curveball" and others told them what they wanted to hear and they ignored warnings from our Intelligence people about their credibility. All of them are just as much to blame.
If I remember right, that was the Kuwaiti ambassador’s daughter.
A good con artists knows that the 'mark' has to also wants to be fooled - to believe in the end result if not the process.
No single entity pushed the U.S. into the 2003 invasion. A low grade shooting war was waged from the end of the first Gulf War until the second Gulf War in the form of no-fly zones where shots were exchanged between Iraq and coalition (U.S.-U.K.-France) on a weekly basis. This included regular air strikes on Iraqi air defense targets. The Clinton Administration carried out two extensive bombing campaigns against strategic targets in Iraq including the homes of government officials. During the Clinton Administration the National Security Council shifted the strategy in Iraqi from containment to regime change. The NSC and the Pentagon also drew the general scheme for what would be Operation Enduring Freedom.
The constant instability in the Gulf region created in part by Iraqi/Coalition hostilities, UN sanctions against Iraq, and threats by Saddam against all his neighbors, led to a build up of U.S. military assets in the region. This led to escalating terrorist attacks on U.S. targets: 1993 World Trade Center; 1996 Kohbar Towers; bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. In addition al Qaeda attempted to blow up Seattle’s Space Needle in 2000 and to simultaneously blow up 13 airliners in 1995. These operations were directed by Saudis protesting the U.S. military presence on Islamic soil.
The thinking at the time was that a continued U.S. military footprint in the region would become ultimately untenable. But withdrawal from the region would collapse the sanctions and unleash Saddam to accelerate his WMD programs and attack his neighbors or at least intimidate them into complying with his extortion. At the time Iraq was allowing small groups of terrorists a sanctuary where they could train and Saddam was paying $25,000 bounties to the families of suicide bombers who attack Israeli targets.
Bush didn’t destabilize the Middle East because he inherited a region that was already unstable.
For anyone who might have read this far, I am not defending Bush. But the conditions that existed in 2001-2003 and the decisions they shaped cannot be put on a bumper sticker.
Good thing we learned our lesson. On to Damascus! /sarc
“He ultimately succeeded by persuading the United States that Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda and possessed weapons of mass destruction in the wake of the September 11 attacks, claims that later proved unfounded.”
That statement is simply not true. There were/are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to this very day. People are worried that ISIS may get their hands on them. Plenty of stories about them in the last couple of years.
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