The Iranian Spy in the House of Bush
By William Rivers Pitt
Wednesday 26 May 2004
George W. Bush is running for a second term on the basis of his
performance in the defense of our national security. Vice President
Cheney has flatly stated that if Bush loses in 2004, the terrorists
win. In truth, however, the national security of the United States of
America has been raped by these people. 'Rape' is a strong word, but
in truth, is not strong enough to describe what has taken place. This
disaster can be summed up in one name: Ahmad Chalabi.
Chalabi was the head of the Iraqi National Congress, a dissident
group organized for the purpose of overthrowing the regime of Saddam
Hussein. Chalabi was a beloved ally of Don Rumsfeld and ***** Cheney
before they came to power with this administration; Chalabi and his
group were the impetus behind the passage of the Iraqi Liberation Act
in 1998, legislation advocated loudly by Rumsfeld, Cheney and the
neo-conservatives who now occupy this government.
Rumsfeld personally groomed Chalabi to take control of Iraq once
Hussein was removed. This, despite the fact that Chalabi was convicted
of 32 counts of bank fraud in Jordan and sentenced in absentia to 22
years in prison, despite the fact that Chalabi had not set foot in
Iraq since he was a teenager, despite the fact that he had no power
base and no credibility in the Middle East. Because the neo-cons loved
him, however, Chalabi saw his opening. More than anything, he lusted
after the oil revenues available from an Iraq he controlled.
Flash forward to January 2001. George W. Bush and his crew took
office, and within a week of the inauguration, began planning for the
invasion and occupation of Iraq. These plans were kicked into high
gear after the attacks of September 11. Bush, grudgingly, agreed to
attack Afghanistan and dismantle that Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold.
Iraq, however, was large in the minds of Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney,
Wolfowitz and the other architects of our current condition. By
September of 2002, Afghanistan was left aside - another failed
'Mission Accomplished' - and Iraq was the new focus.
The attacks of September 11 made Ahmad Chalabi. The Bush
administration had already decided to attack Iraq, and then began
casting about for evidence to support the decision which had already
been made. Don Rumsfeld organized a secretive group within the Defense
Department called the Office of Special Plans, the purpose of which
was to cherry-pick intelligence reports that made Iraq appear to be an
imminent threat. Representatives of the OSP - including Vice President
Cheney, Cheney deputy Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and former Speaker Newt
Gingrich - visited CIA headquarters on several occasions to browbeat
the analysts into "toughening up" their analyses of the Iraqi threat.
More than any single person, Ahmad Chalabi was the source for the
'intelligence' on the Iraqi threat that was offered to the American
people. Chalabi was the man who claimed Iraq was in possession of vast
stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. He was able to broadband
this lie by becoming the trusted source for New York Times journalist
Judith Miller. Miller wrote article after article about the WMD threat
posed by Iraq, based on the false data provided by Chalabi. The rest
of the news media piggy-backed on the reputation of the Times and
re-reported Miller's WMD information across the news spectrum, turning
Chalabi's false data into axiomatic truth in the eyes of the American
public. It was a masterful stroke.
Chalabi was the man who claimed Hussein enjoyed deep operational
connections with Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda terror network. This
allegation, along with the claims of weapons of mass destruction,
created the 'imminent threat' aura which greased the skids towards
invasion. Like the WMD claims, no proof of the al Qaeda allegations
could be established.
Finally, Chalabi was the man who told Rumsfeld and the rest of the
crew that an invasion and occupation of Iraq would be a cakewalk, that
the people of Iraq would welcome us with flowers and joy. 802 dead
American soldiers later, thousands of wounded American soldiers later,
at least ten thousand dead Iraqis later, uncounted billions of dollars
later, we have come to see exactly how wrong this claim was. Bush,
Rumsfeld and the rest believed him implicitly in every aspect, because
he was telling them what they wanted to hear.
Rumsfeld, the OSP and the neo-cons in general did not have much
use throughout all this for the American intelligence community. The
CIA, for one, refused to deliver the clear-cut evidence of an Iraqi
threat needed to justify the already-made decision to invade. Because
Rumsfeld and the rest had Chalabi in hand, they happily cut the CIA
and the rest of the American intelligence community completely out of
the loop. This actually became funny last summer, when the Bush
administration went out of its way to blame the CIA for the fact that
no weapons of mass destruction or al Qaeda connections could be found
in Iraq.
Now, we come to discover that Chalabi, beloved by the Bush
administration, was in fact serving the national security interests of
Iran. For the record, Iran does have operational relationships with
international terrorism, and does have a robust program for the
development of weapons of mass destruction.
The CIA is in possession today of "rock-solid" evidence that Ahmad
Chalabi is an agent of the Iranian government, that he used his
position with the Bush administration to push false data upon the
gullible hawks in Washington. According to a report by Julian Borger
in the UK Guardian, "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 implications," writes Borger, "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.'"
Iran's motives are crystal clear. Iraq has been a mortal enemy of
Iran for decades. The process engineered by Chalabi has destroyed that
enemy, and opened the way to a Shia-controlled Iraq that would be a
natural ally of Shia-controlled Iran. In the process, Iran has come
into possession of national security secrets so important that only a
select few American officials were cleared for them. As a side
benefit, Iran has watched the United States flail like a beached whale
in Iraq, squandering billions of dollars and thousands of lives while
shattering its reputation around the world.
George W. Bush and his people delivered this boon to Iran on a
silver platter. Let us recap:
The Bush administration, enamored of Chalabi, threw the American
intelligence services under the bus, leaving us blind, deaf and dumb;
The Bush administration barnstormed us into a catastrophic war in Iraq
on the word of Chalabi, giving Osama bin Laden the kind of rallying
point he had previously only fantasized about;
Because the Bush administration trusted Chalabi so completely, he was
able to give our national security secrets to Iran, while
simultaneously feeding Bush's people disinformation about Iraq, which
they were all too ready to hear and act upon;
Because Chalabi was working for Iran, and because he has coughed up
the deep national security secrets he gained via access provided by
the Bush administration, there are more than 130,000 American soldiers
in Iraq whose lives are in far greater danger than anyone previously
imagined;
The Bush administration paid Chalabi $340,000 a month to do this, over
and above whatever he earned from Iranian intelligence for selling us
down the river.
The damage all this has done is incalculable.
The hawks will try to put all the blame for this on Ahmad Chalabi
alone, and will claim they were "duped." The truth, however, is that
Bush's people have been courting Chalabi for years, long before they
became a part of this administration. He is their creature. The truth
is that Bush's people wanted this Iraq war, and were willing to do
whatever was necessary to get it. Chalabi was their vehicle, and in
using him, they have betrayed us all.
The truth is that George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and the rest of
the neo-conservatives are personally responsible for the delivery of
our most precious national security secrets into the hands of Iran, a
nation that has believed itself to be at war with us since the Carter
administration. The method of that delivery, this Iraq invasion and
occupation, has made the entire world a more dangerous place by orders
of magnitude. Thousands are dead, and more will certainly die, because
of this.
There is no repackaged 'Five-Point Plan' this administration can
offer, no series of campaign speeches, which can salvage this
situation. Bush and his people have lost the 'war,' they have lost the
'peace,' they have disgraced us throughout the world, and they have
dim-witted their way through all of this for the benefit of Iran. This
is the most damaging breach of national security in generations.
'Rape' is a strong word, but is all too appropriate for what has
taken place here.
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William Rivers Pitt is the senior editor and lead writer for t r u
t h o u t. He is a New York Times and international bestselling author
of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know'
and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'
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