| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Don Swayser" |
| Date: |
22 Feb 2004 01:41:49 PM |
| Object: |
Re: Iraqi exiles still getting paid, despite false intelligence |
Gee, what happened to the "lie" allegations? Turned out you were wrong,
didn't it?
Now you're questioning the payment of money to people who may still have
valuable information concerning CBN's and terrorist connections to
Hussein. Heaven forbid, huh? Of course people like you would love to
stop any data concerning these matters to be fully investigated. The
results might blow even more holes in your ego. Since before the war the
left has been whimpering and whining against President George Bush II,
and every time his administration has shoved it right back up your *****'.
No wonder you hate this man. Only god knows how much damage he's going
to do your precious leftist cause if he gets reelected.
You know you're wrong again, don't you?
Donald L Ferrt wrote:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001862854_intel22.html
Sunday, February 22, 2004 - Page updated at 12:21 A.M.
Iraqi exiles still getting paid, despite false intelligence
By Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense is continuing to pay millions
of dollars for information from the former Iraqi opposition group that
produced some of the exaggerated and fabricated intelligence President
Bush used to argue his case for war.
The Pentagon has set aside between $3 million and $4 million this year
for the Information Collection Program of the Iraqi National Congress,
or INC, led by Ahmad Chalabi, said two senior U.S. officials and a
U.S. defense official.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because intelligence programs are
classified.
The continuing support for the INC comes amid seven separate
investigations into pre-war intelligence that Iraq was hiding illicit
weapons and had links to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. The
Senate Intelligence Committee is now examining the INC's role.
The decision not to shut off money for the INC's information-gathering
effort suggests that some within the administration are intent on
securing a key role for Chalabi in Iraq's political future.
Close administration ties
Chalabi, who built close ties to officials in Vice President *****
Cheney's office and among top Pentagon officials, is on the Iraqi
Governing Council, a body of 25 Iraqis installed by the United States
to help administer the country following the ouster of Saddam Hussein
in April.
The former businessman, who lobbied for years for a U.S.-backed
military effort to topple Saddam, is publicly committed to making
peace with Israel and providing bases in the heart of the oil-rich
Middle East for use by U.S. forces in anti-terrorism efforts.
The INC's Information Collection Program started in 2001 and was
"designed to collect, analyze and disseminate information" from inside
Iraq, according to a letter the group sent in June 2002 to the staff
of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Some of the INC's information alleged that Saddam was rebuilding his
nuclear-weapons program, which was destroyed by U.N. inspectors after
the 1991 Gulf War, and was stockpiling banned chemical and biological
weapons, according to the letter.
The letter, a copy of which was obtained by Knight Ridder, said the
information went directly to "U.S. government recipients" who included
William Luti, a senior official in Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld's office, and John Hannah, a top national-security aide to
Cheney.
The letter appeared to contradict denials made last year by top
Pentagon officials that they were receiving intelligence on Iraq that
bypassed established channels and vetting procedures.
The INC also supplied information from its collection program to
leading news organizations in the United States, Europe and the Middle
East, according to the letter to the Senate committee staff.
The State Department and the CIA, which soured on Chalabi in the
1990s, viewed the INC's information as highly unreliable because it
was coming from a source with a strong self-interest in convincing the
United States to topple Saddam.
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has concluded since the invasion
that defectors turned over by the INC provided little worthwhile
information, and that at least one of them, the source of an
allegation that Saddam had mobile biological-warfare laboratories, was
a fabricator. A defense official said the INC did provide some
valuable material on Saddam's military and security apparatus.
Even so, dubious INC-supplied information found its way into the Bush
administration's arguments for war, including information that
supported charges that Saddam was concealing illicit arms stockpiles
and was supporting al-Qaida.
No illicit weapons have been found, and senior U.S. officials say
there is no compelling evidence that Saddam cooperated with al-Qaida
to attack Americans.
Decision defended
The Information Collection Program is now overseen by the DIA, the
Pentagon's main intelligence arm, which took over when the State
Department decided to give it up in late 2002.
The defense official defended the current support of the INC effort,
saying that it has been of some help to the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group,
a team that is trying to determine what happened to Iraq's chemical-,
biological- and nuclear-weapons programs.
INC-supplied informants also have identified insurgents who have been
waging a guerrilla war that has claimed the lives of more than 500
U.S. troops and hundreds of Iraqis, he said.
"To call all of it (INC intelligence) useless is too negative," said
the defense official, who described the Information Collection Program
as a "massive" undertaking.
"You never take anything at face value," he continued. "When the INC
gives information, we absolutely pursue it. You never know what that
golden nugget is going to be."
But a senior administration official questioned whether the United
States should still be paying for the program.
"A huge amount of what was collected hasn't panned out," he said.
"Some of it has turned out to have been either wrong or fabricated."
The senior administration official also sought to justify the initial
decision to support the program.
'We may have been duped'
Before the invasion, U.S. intelligence agencies had no better human
sources in Iraq, and had no choice but to rely on the INC, minority
Kurdish guerrilla groups and other sources who claimed to have
knowledge of Saddam's illegal arms programs, ties to terrorist groups
and his military forces, he said.
"The evidence now suggests that at some points along the way, we may
have been duped by people who wanted to encourage military action for
their own reasons," he conceded.
Chalabi apparently is less concerned about the past.
"We are heroes in error," Chalabi was quoted as saying recently in
Baghdad by The Daily Telegraph of London. "As far as we're concerned
we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the
Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The
Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We're ready to fall on
our swords if he wants."
--
I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and filled him with a
terrible resolve.
Isoroku Yamamoto December 7, 1941
.
|
|
| User: "Donald L Ferrt" |
|
| Title: Re: Iraqi exiles still getting paid, despite false intelligence |
23 Feb 2004 08:18:06 AM |
|
|
Don Swayser <swayser@optonline.net> wrote in message news:<403905F2.8080408@optonline.net>...
Gee, what happened to the "lie" allegations? Turned out you were wrong,
didn't it?
Now you're questioning the payment of money to people who may still have
valuable information concerning CBN's and terrorist connections to
Hussein.
No, I am quewstioning the quacks the Pentagon supported and the quacks
who lied so that they could get power and riches in Iraq! Remember
Saddam use to be on that list!
Heaven forbid, huh? Of course people like you would love to
stop any data concerning these matters to be fully investigated.
Stop???? The article demands investigations be started on this whole
thing!
The
results might blow even more holes in your ego. Since before the war the
left has been whimpering and whining against President George Bush II,
and every time his administration has shoved it right back up your *****'.
No wonder you hate this man. Only god knows how much damage he's going
to do your precious leftist cause if he gets reelected.
Makes no sense = did that come from your random word generator????
You know you're wrong again, don't you?
Hardly:
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/5049/
Playing the Chalabi Card
by Ahmed Amr
(Sunday 22 February 2004)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Unfortunately for the neo-cons, the Chalabi card is unlikely to
deliver a winning hand. Because Chalabi can not take credit or blame
for the Niger Yellow Cake uranium ‘intelligence failure’, the
fictional Al Qaeda/Saddam meeting in Prague or the outing of Valerie
Plame. Neither can he be held responsible for the delirious
predictions of the neo-con establishment about cakewalks and other
Likudnik fantasies."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful. That tyrant
Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before
is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat.
We're ready to fall on our swords if he wants."
With these words, Ahmed Chalabi publicly took the blame for providing
false information to the American intelligence community. Isn’t
Chalabi an American citizen? Isn’t there some kind of law against an
American deliberately misleading one of his countries for the sake of
another one of his countries? Why is Chalabi so unconcerned about the
consequences of his admission? Does it have anything to do with
helping the Bush administration diffuse some of the pressure from the
so-called ‘intelligence failures’?
Four months ago, I predicted that Ahmed Chalabi would come forward and
fall on his sword as a martyr for the neo-cons. In this season of
investigating deliberate ‘intelligence failures’, the Chalabi card was
bound to be played sooner rather than later. Now that the OSP is being
probed for corrupting WMD intelligence, Chalabi has been thrown in to
the battle to help the neo-cons dodge the blame for the consequences
of the rush to war. It doesn’t cost him anything. Chalabi’s reputation
is not exactly worth saving. Besides, he can pose as an Iraqi patriot
who did what he had to do to get rid of Saddam.
It should be noted that Conrad Black, a militant pro-Israeli activist,
owns the Daily Telegraph, the arena Chalabi chose to fall on his
sword. Richard Perle, a prime suspect in the engineering of the
‘intelligence failure’, sits on the board of Hollinger, the parent
holding company of the Telegraph. This little Chalabi dance was
choreographed way in advance. It didn’t take a genius to see it
coming.
Unfortunately for the neo-cons, the Chalabi card is unlikely to
deliver a winning hand. Because Chalabi can not take credit or blame
for the Niger Yellow Cake uranium ‘intelligence failure’, the
fictional Al Qaeda/Saddam meeting in Prague or the outing of Valerie
Plame. Neither can he be held responsible for the delirious
predictions of the neo-con establishment about cakewalks and other
Likudnik fantasies.
With that introduction, please consider reading the following article
that correctly predicted that Chalabi would volunteer to fall on his
sword for his neo-con brethren. Note that it which was originally
published on October 25, 2003.
Playing the Plame Game
Be certain of this. No journalist working for the Washington Post
wants to play the Plame game. The same lack of interest is epidemic at
other media monopolies like CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York
Times and Fox. If you have any doubts about this assertion, use a
search engine to verify the fact that they have not published a single
story linking the Plame affair to the Office of Special Plans (OSP).
Not a single major media outlet has bothered to probe the OSP link to
the outing of a CIA agent married to Joseph Wilson IV.
Why link the OSP to the Plame scandal? Why does the OSP link make The
Washington Post so averse to playing the Plame game?
The Office of Special Plans (OSP) was set up by Paul Wolfowitz to
filter CIA and DIA intelligence to market the Iraq war. The scheme to
dumb down intelligence was supported by Rumsfeld and Cheney and their
neo-con advisers, Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby. It is highly unlikely
that major players like Tony Blaire were unaware of these deliberate
‘intelligence failures’.
The long and short of it is that the OSP was a ‘circular’ intelligence
scam. First you concoct intelligence using operatives like Chalabi and
the Iraqi National Congress (INC). Next you discover the intoxicating
concoction on the menu at Chalabi’s place. Using his recipe you
dismiss the findings of the CIA and DIA as too timid and unworthy of
master chefs. You then selectively practice the art of the leak by
contacting fellow travelers like FOX and CNN to come over for a taste
of Chalabi’s soup de jour. For good measure, Charles Krauthammer and
Judith Miller also get invited for the main course. Last, for a final
coup de grace, Judith Miller’s WMD stories are put on the OSP
lunchroom menu as a new item made of fresh leaks.
For a full account of the OSP scam, you should read ‘The Spies who
Pushed for War’ (By Julian Borger, the Guardian, July 17, 2003.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html
The Post, along with the Times and the Wall Street Journal, had full
concrete knowledge of the OSP intelligence scam. In fact, many of
their reporters took an active part in leaking OSP ‘findings’ or in
originating OSP ‘intelligence’.
If the administration’s post-war fantasies had materialized, the OSP
wizards figured that a triumphant America would ignore the fact that
Iraq had no WMDs, no connection to Al-Qaida and no role in the 911
atrocities.
Just in case the Iraqi adventure ended up in a disaster, the Likudniks
who staffed the OSP would blame it all on ‘intelligence failures’ and
pin the blame on Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress.
Chalabi had no problem volunteering for this role. He would submit to
a few ceremonial lashes and then be excused. After all, he was a
desperate man who just wanted to rid his country from the tyranny of
Saddam Hussein.
But events outpaced the worst case scenarios of the OSP. Their
post-war plan was a joke, the hallucination of an ugly Likudnik mind.
And there was a serious glitch in the OSP backup plan to pin all the
‘intelligence failures’ on Chalabi. The yellow cake uranium scam did
not originate from Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress.
When the CIA dispatched Ambassador Wilson to Niger to investigate if
there was any substance to the story, he reported back that it was a
crude fraud. The mainstream intelligence community concurred, except
that the OSP conveniently ‘forgot’ the CIA’s finding. Wilson got irked
when Bush used the famous sixteen yellow cake words in a speech to the
nation. He wrote a critical article challenging the President and Bush
was forced to eat all sixteen words.
Tenent gallantly came forward and took the blame for this intelligence
‘failure’. Like Chalaby, he also volunteered for a public flogging and
the honor of administering the ceremonial lashes went to Condi Rice.
Because her lashes where less than gentle, Tenent demanded that Condi
also volunteer for a flogging. In Condi’s case, the ceremonial lashes
where administered by an unidentified senior administration official.
With in a week, the whole nasty Plame affair had been put to rest.
The Wilson story could very well have ended up as a single footnote in
this saga of war and deception. Hans Blix and many others had already
taken more serious swipes at the administration. But the White House
neo-cons, arrogant as ever and addicted to a doctrine of revenge,
decided to get even with Wilson. They chose Plame as the vessel of
their vengeance. The first blow in the smear campaign against the
Wilsons found a willing publisher in The Washington Post.
This time the neo-cons had gone too far. If only because men like
Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV don’t take kindly to some Likudnik
operative assaulting the career of their beloved AK-47 wielding Jane
Bond wives.
So, the Wilson clan took up arms and a whole bunch of livid former
intelligence agents joined the fray. An unmarked line in the Beltway
swamps had been crossed. And we are no where near the final chapter.
In this national security scandal, all roads lead to the Washington
Post Company. But do not expect the Post or the Times to start playing
the Plame game anytime soon.
The OSP connection is why the Plame scandal is not your daddy’s
Watergate. For very good reasons, there will be no Woodwards or
Bernsteins emerging from the ranks of the corporate media giants.
Because pursuing the OSP link leads straight to their inner sanctums.
It will expose quite a few of their media ‘stars’ for their active
role in deceiving the public.
This time, the Woodwards will have to be drafted from the ranks of
some very agile alternative journalists. Let the Plame games begin.
The smart money says the winners will be independent journalists who
don’t give a rip about taking on The Washington Post or The New York
Times.
Donald L Ferrt wrote:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001862854_intel22.html
Sunday, February 22, 2004 - Page updated at 12:21 A.M.
Iraqi exiles still getting paid, despite false intelligence
By Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense is continuing to pay millions
of dollars for information from the former Iraqi opposition group that
produced some of the exaggerated and fabricated intelligence President
Bush used to argue his case for war.
The Pentagon has set aside between $3 million and $4 million this year
for the Information Collection Program of the Iraqi National Congress,
or INC, led by Ahmad Chalabi, said two senior U.S. officials and a
U.S. defense official.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because intelligence programs are
classified.
The continuing support for the INC comes amid seven separate
investigations into pre-war intelligence that Iraq was hiding illicit
weapons and had links to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. The
Senate Intelligence Committee is now examining the INC's role.
The decision not to shut off money for the INC's information-gathering
effort suggests that some within the administration are intent on
securing a key role for Chalabi in Iraq's political future.
Close administration ties
Chalabi, who built close ties to officials in Vice President *****
Cheney's office and among top Pentagon officials, is on the Iraqi
Governing Council, a body of 25 Iraqis installed by the United States
to help administer the country following the ouster of Saddam Hussein
in April.
The former businessman, who lobbied for years for a U.S.-backed
military effort to topple Saddam, is publicly committed to making
peace with Israel and providing bases in the heart of the oil-rich
Middle East for use by U.S. forces in anti-terrorism efforts.
The INC's Information Collection Program started in 2001 and was
"designed to collect, analyze and disseminate information" from inside
Iraq, according to a letter the group sent in June 2002 to the staff
of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Some of the INC's information alleged that Saddam was rebuilding his
nuclear-weapons program, which was destroyed by U.N. inspectors after
the 1991 Gulf War, and was stockpiling banned chemical and biological
weapons, according to the letter.
The letter, a copy of which was obtained by Knight Ridder, said the
information went directly to "U.S. government recipients" who included
William Luti, a senior official in Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld's office, and John Hannah, a top national-security aide to
Cheney.
The letter appeared to contradict denials made last year by top
Pentagon officials that they were receiving intelligence on Iraq that
bypassed established channels and vetting procedures.
The INC also supplied information from its collection program to
leading news organizations in the United States, Europe and the Middle
East, according to the letter to the Senate committee staff.
The State Department and the CIA, which soured on Chalabi in the
1990s, viewed the INC's information as highly unreliable because it
was coming from a source with a strong self-interest in convincing the
United States to topple Saddam.
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has concluded since the invasion
that defectors turned over by the INC provided little worthwhile
information, and that at least one of them, the source of an
allegation that Saddam had mobile biological-warfare laboratories, was
a fabricator. A defense official said the INC did provide some
valuable material on Saddam's military and security apparatus.
Even so, dubious INC-supplied information found its way into the Bush
administration's arguments for war, including information that
supported charges that Saddam was concealing illicit arms stockpiles
and was supporting al-Qaida.
No illicit weapons have been found, and senior U.S. officials say
there is no compelling evidence that Saddam cooperated with al-Qaida
to attack Americans.
Decision defended
The Information Collection Program is now overseen by the DIA, the
Pentagon's main intelligence arm, which took over when the State
Department decided to give it up in late 2002.
The defense official defended the current support of the INC effort,
saying that it has been of some help to the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group,
a team that is trying to determine what happened to Iraq's chemical-,
biological- and nuclear-weapons programs.
INC-supplied informants also have identified insurgents who have been
waging a guerrilla war that has claimed the lives of more than 500
U.S. troops and hundreds of Iraqis, he said.
"To call all of it (INC intelligence) useless is too negative," said
the defense official, who described the Information Collection Program
as a "massive" undertaking.
"You never take anything at face value," he continued. "When the INC
gives information, we absolutely pursue it. You never know what that
golden nugget is going to be."
But a senior administration official questioned whether the United
States should still be paying for the program.
"A huge amount of what was collected hasn't panned out," he said.
"Some of it has turned out to have been either wrong or fabricated."
The senior administration official also sought to justify the initial
decision to support the program.
'We may have been duped'
Before the invasion, U.S. intelligence agencies had no better human
sources in Iraq, and had no choice but to rely on the INC, minority
Kurdish guerrilla groups and other sources who claimed to have
knowledge of Saddam's illegal arms programs, ties to terrorist groups
and his military forces, he said.
"The evidence now suggests that at some points along the way, we may
have been duped by people who wanted to encourage military action for
their own reasons," he conceded.
Chalabi apparently is less concerned about the past.
"We are heroes in error," Chalabi was quoted as saying recently in
Baghdad by The Daily Telegraph of London. "As far as we're concerned
we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the
Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The
Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We're ready to fall on
our swords if he wants."
.
|
|
|
| User: "InsuranceBroker" |
|
| Title: Re: Iraqi exiles still getting paid, despite false intelligence |
23 Feb 2004 08:26:29 AM |
|
|
Subject: Re: Iraqi exiles still getting paid, despite false intelligence
From: (Donald L Ferrt)
Date: 2/23/2004 9:18 AM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <b9eb3efe.0402230618.41504fc2@posting.google.com>
Don Swayser <swayser@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:<403905F2.8080408@optonline.net>...
Gee, what happened to the "lie" allegations? Turned out you were wrong,
didn't it?
Now you're questioning the payment of money to people who may still have
valuable information concerning CBN's and terrorist connections to
Hussein.
No, I am quewstioning the quacks the Pentagon supported and the quacks
who lied so that they could get power and riches in Iraq! Remember
Saddam use to be on that list!
Before the war the rabid right pushed on exile who cried about Saddim. He was
on the news recently with the fact that he is happy. Saddim is out of power.
I am sure this exile like many others has made a ton of money on this war.
Heaven forbid, huh? Of course people like you would love to
stop any data concerning these matters to be fully investigated.
Stop???? The article demands investigations be started on this whole
thing!
The
results might blow even more holes in your ego. Since before the war the
left has been whimpering and whining against President George Bush II,
and every time his administration has shoved it right back up your *****'.
No wonder you hate this man. Only god knows how much damage he's going
to do your precious leftist cause if he gets reelected.
Makes no sense = did that come from your random word generator????
You know you're wrong again, don't you?
Hardly:
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/5049/
Playing the Chalabi Card
by Ahmed Amr
(Sunday 22 February 2004)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
"Unfortunately for the neo-cons, the Chalabi card is unlikely to
deliver a winning hand. Because Chalabi can not take credit or blame
for the Niger Yellow Cake uranium ‘intelligence failure’, the
fictional Al Qaeda/Saddam meeting in Prague or the outing of Valerie
Plame. Neither can he be held responsible for the delirious
predictions of the neo-con establishment about cakewalks and other
Likudnik fantasies."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
"As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful. That tyrant
Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before
is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat.
We're ready to fall on our swords if he wants."
With these words, Ahmed Chalabi publicly took the blame for providing
false information to the American intelligence community. Isn’t
Chalabi an American citizen? Isn’t there some kind of law against an
American deliberately misleading one of his countries for the sake of
another one of his countries? Why is Chalabi so unconcerned about the
consequences of his admission? Does it have anything to do with
helping the Bush administration diffuse some of the pressure from the
so-called ‘intelligence failures’?
Four months ago, I predicted that Ahmed Chalabi would come forward and
fall on his sword as a martyr for the neo-cons. In this season of
investigating
Doing Insurance business in the Garden State
.
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Donald L Ferrt" |
|
| Title: Re: Iraqi exiles still getting paid, despite false intelligence |
23 Feb 2004 08:39:49 AM |
|
|
Don Swayser <swayser@optonline.net> wrote in message news:<403905F2.8080408@optonline.net>...
Gee, what happened to the "lie" allegations? Turned out you were wrong,
didn't it?
Now you're questioning the payment of money to people who may still have
valuable information concerning CBN's and terrorist connections to
Hussein. Heaven forbid, huh? Of course people like you would love to
stop any data concerning these matters to be fully investigated. The
results might blow even more holes in your ego. Since before the war the
left has been whimpering and whining against President George Bush II,
and every time his administration has shoved it right back up your *****'.
No wonder you hate this man. Only god knows how much damage he's going
to do your precious leftist cause if he gets reelected.
You know you're wrong again, don't you?
Nope:
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_5261.shtml
Iraq
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Truth Always Comes Out in the Wash
By Georgie Anne Geyer
Feb 22, 2004, 10:34
Email this article
Printer friendly page
February 20, 2004-Years ago my dear friend, the eccentric but
brilliant British writer Frieda Utley, used to say after evenings of
impassioned arguing about politics, life and love: "It finally all
comes down to washing up." Then she'd go do the dishes.
Me? I have my own little responses. When some smarty-pants in some
administration says vaingloriously that HE cannot tell ME something, I
tell him (admittedly in a somewhat smart a...lecky way), "Just
remember, I'll be here long after you're gone." Others I tell for the
good of their soul, "You know, this story is going to come out in the
end anyway."
Those little nuggets of wisdom seemed to resurface this week in the
next chapter of the "Chalabi Saga," which is getting so sinuous it
might replace the never-ending Forsytes.
What we're seeing is a continued washing up after the dirty business
of getting America into war in Iraq, thanks to my smart-alecky
journalist friends.
You DO remember Ahmad Chalabi? He's the sleek, arrogant one from the
corridors of political London who wants desperately to be president of
Iraq. Chalabi courted American neocons here and figured he could "buy"
an American war, even on the cheap, by feeding false intelligence to
gullible fanatics. He is wanted in Jordan on his conviction as a bank
embezzler who was sentenced in absentia in 1992 to 22 years of hard
labor -- but hey, nobody's perfect.
In fact, Chalabi was made to order for the people who wanted to invade
Iraq -- and it is abundantly clear that his intelligence was made to
order, too.
This week, Chalabi, who has been serving as president of the Iraqi
Governing Council in Baghdad, gave an interview there to the London
Daily Telegraph in which he effectively admitted that the intelligence
he avidly supplied to the civilians at the top of the Pentagon and
others was cooked up.
"We are heroes in error," he said in the interview, shrugging off the
criticisms coming from Washington. "As far as we're concerned, we've
been entirely successful. Our objective has been achieved. That tyrant
Saddam is gone, and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before
is not important."
Months ago, United Press International's Martin Sieff reported that
Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress coached a number of Iraqi army
defectors and others, in great detail, to convince American
intelligence that Saddam was hiding a veritable arsenal of chemical
and biological weapons as well as an active nuclear bomb program.
American officials last week actually named one of the most bold
cases. It was the claim that came from an INC-coached major in the
Iraqi intelligence service who said that Saddam had mobile biological
weapons laboratories -- the man even passed a lie detector test. But
the claim had a life of its own and continued to be cited by American
officials until arms inspector David Kay returned from Iraq and
confirmed that the trucks had been built to hold equipment to make
hydrogen for weather balloons.
All along, Chalabi was bitterly distrusted in Washington by both the
CIA and the State Department. The intentions of Chalabi & Co. could
not have had access here -- or the success in getting us into this war
-- without the "American Likudniks" within the neoconservative war
party.
Douglas Feith, deputy to Donald Rumsfeld, has long been known as a
far-right supporter of Ariel Sharon's Likud Party in Israel. He argues
that there is no difference between U.S. and Israeli security
concerns; other officials such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and
David Wurmser are right behind him.
The fact that so many of the authors of this war are Jewish is not
important. That they uncritically fit the alien shroud of Israeli
far-right expansionist policy over American security policy is. They
supported Chalabi so recklessly because he promised to immediately
open relations between Iraq and Israel and begin piping oil to Israel.
As this incredible saga of using America to fight other people's wars
continues -- some analysts here call it a "coup," some call it a
"hijacking" of our policy; I prefer "conspiracy" -- the wash-up takes
ever new configurations. The beleaguered neocons, responding to
allegations that they led America into a falsely defined war, are
diverting attacks from themselves to the CIA. Richard Perle, who as
head of the Defense Policy Board had great input into the preparations
for war, actually said this week: "The CIA has an almost perfect
record of getting it wrong in relation to the Gulf going back to the
Shah of Iran." He called for a "shakeup" in the intelligence
establishment, which means "heads should roll." Neocon David Brooks
even wrote in a New York Times column recently that there were no
neocons! And one story going around town has ***** Cheney angrily
accusing Colin Powell of bungling Iraq because he didn't let Chalabi
immediately take over.
A coup? A hijacking? A conspiracy? Come to think of it, the situation
more closely resembles the word "neocon" -- just take off the "neo."
http://www.uexpress.com/georgieannegeyer/
Donald L Ferrt wrote:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001862854_intel22.html
Sunday, February 22, 2004 - Page updated at 12:21 A.M.
Iraqi exiles still getting paid, despite false intelligence
By Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense is continuing to pay millions
of dollars for information from the former Iraqi opposition group that
produced some of the exaggerated and fabricated intelligence President
Bush used to argue his case for war.
The Pentagon has set aside between $3 million and $4 million this year
for the Information Collection Program of the Iraqi National Congress,
or INC, led by Ahmad Chalabi, said two senior U.S. officials and a
U.S. defense official.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because intelligence programs are
classified.
The continuing support for the INC comes amid seven separate
investigations into pre-war intelligence that Iraq was hiding illicit
weapons and had links to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. The
Senate Intelligence Committee is now examining the INC's role.
The decision not to shut off money for the INC's information-gathering
effort suggests that some within the administration are intent on
securing a key role for Chalabi in Iraq's political future.
Close administration ties
Chalabi, who built close ties to officials in Vice President *****
Cheney's office and among top Pentagon officials, is on the Iraqi
Governing Council, a body of 25 Iraqis installed by the United States
to help administer the country following the ouster of Saddam Hussein
in April.
The former businessman, who lobbied for years for a U.S.-backed
military effort to topple Saddam, is publicly committed to making
peace with Israel and providing bases in the heart of the oil-rich
Middle East for use by U.S. forces in anti-terrorism efforts.
The INC's Information Collection Program started in 2001 and was
"designed to collect, analyze and disseminate information" from inside
Iraq, according to a letter the group sent in June 2002 to the staff
of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Some of the INC's information alleged that Saddam was rebuilding his
nuclear-weapons program, which was destroyed by U.N. inspectors after
the 1991 Gulf War, and was stockpiling banned chemical and biological
weapons, according to the letter.
The letter, a copy of which was obtained by Knight Ridder, said the
information went directly to "U.S. government recipients" who included
William Luti, a senior official in Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld's office, and John Hannah, a top national-security aide to
Cheney.
The letter appeared to contradict denials made last year by top
Pentagon officials that they were receiving intelligence on Iraq that
bypassed established channels and vetting procedures.
The INC also supplied information from its collection program to
leading news organizations in the United States, Europe and the Middle
East, according to the letter to the Senate committee staff.
The State Department and the CIA, which soured on Chalabi in the
1990s, viewed the INC's information as highly unreliable because it
was coming from a source with a strong self-interest in convincing the
United States to topple Saddam.
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has concluded since the invasion
that defectors turned over by the INC provided little worthwhile
information, and that at least one of them, the source of an
allegation that Saddam had mobile biological-warfare laboratories, was
a fabricator. A defense official said the INC did provide some
valuable material on Saddam's military and security apparatus.
Even so, dubious INC-supplied information found its way into the Bush
administration's arguments for war, including information that
supported charges that Saddam was concealing illicit arms stockpiles
and was supporting al-Qaida.
No illicit weapons have been found, and senior U.S. officials say
there is no compelling evidence that Saddam cooperated with al-Qaida
to attack Americans.
Decision defended
The Information Collection Program is now overseen by the DIA, the
Pentagon's main intelligence arm, which took over when the State
Department decided to give it up in late 2002.
The defense official defended the current support of the INC effort,
saying that it has been of some help to the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group,
a team that is trying to determine what happened to Iraq's chemical-,
biological- and nuclear-weapons programs.
INC-supplied informants also have identified insurgents who have been
waging a guerrilla war that has claimed the lives of more than 500
U.S. troops and hundreds of Iraqis, he said.
"To call all of it (INC intelligence) useless is too negative," said
the defense official, who described the Information Collection Program
as a "massive" undertaking.
"You never take anything at face value," he continued. "When the INC
gives information, we absolutely pursue it. You never know what that
golden nugget is going to be."
But a senior administration official questioned whether the United
States should still be paying for the program.
"A huge amount of what was collected hasn't panned out," he said.
"Some of it has turned out to have been either wrong or fabricated."
The senior administration official also sought to justify the initial
decision to support the program.
'We may have been duped'
Before the invasion, U.S. intelligence agencies had no better human
sources in Iraq, and had no choice but to rely on the INC, minority
Kurdish guerrilla groups and other sources who claimed to have
knowledge of Saddam's illegal arms programs, ties to terrorist groups
and his military forces, he said.
"The evidence now suggests that at some points along the way, we may
have been duped by people who wanted to encourage military action for
their own reasons," he conceded.
Chalabi apparently is less concerned about the past.
"We are heroes in error," Chalabi was quoted as saying recently in
Baghdad by The Daily Telegraph of London. "As far as we're concerned
we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the
Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The
Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We're ready to fall on
our swords if he wants."
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