Even though this guy Chalabi has been convicted in Jordan in the PAST for fraud, it's not our fault that we were dumb enough to trust him! Not our fault there were no WMDs -- this guy TOLD US there were! This was CREDIBLE EVIDENCE! Hey, this guy was CREDIBLE! Not our fault there weren't any WMDs in Iraq! It's all HIS fault, and now we think he's a BAD GUY so we're gonna lock him up! We're the good guys! Before we commit over $200bil to a war, we make sure we're getting evidence from RELIABLE SOURCES, LIKE THIS GUY, and we even double check before paying him a salary of $340,000 per month of the taxpayers' money! Because we're the GOOD GUYS -- we have a GOOD STRATEGY and GOOD INTELLIGENCE that we get from all the money the taxpayers give us to run the country. I mean, we spent over ONE TRILLION DOLLARS last year on the military and associated contractors, and you can SURE BET THAT IT'S WORTH EVERY DIME. Because we've been SUCCESSFUL ON THE WAR ON TERROR because we're the GOOD GUYS. This Iraq thing -- man, we're killing like 32 terrorists every day! At this rate, we'll kill ALL of the ones we created when we invaded Iraq in about 40 years, when most of them die of other causes anyway...we're the GOOD GUYS! Notice the odd silence from the White House on this whole Chalabi thing? Like they fed the media a story and just sat back and watched. And in response, Iran denies exchange of secrets - http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/23/chalabi.iran.ap/index.html But Iran (from the above article) in a subtle manner reminds the US of its pending lawsuit against the US for supplying Saddam with chemical weapons in the early 80s -- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&e=6&u=/nm/20040428/wl_nm/iran_iraq_usa_dc_1
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=31508 AHMED CHALABI'S TIES TO MOSSAD & NEOCONS *PIC* Posted By: ChristopherBollyn <Send E-Mail> Date: Friday, 25 April 2003, 2:51 p.m. AHMED CHALABI'S CHECKERED PAST By Christopher Bollyn When Gen. Abdul Karim Qasim ousted the Iraqi monarchy of King Faisal II in July 1958, many Iraqis, like the family of Ahmed Chalabi, which had enjoyed close ties with the monarchy, were forced to flee the country. Today, Chalabi is the man behind the self-declared government that has come to power in Baghdad. Chalabi, a non-practising Shia, is reportedly a close friend of the late Shah of Iran, the former Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan and Col. Oliver North of the Reagan Administration, according to a recent paper on Chalabi for the South Asia Analysis Group titled "Ahmed Chalabi: The Janos Kadar of Iraq" by B. Raman, a Indian intelligence expert. The head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), Chalabi comes from an aristocratic Shiite family that was connected to the monarchy of Faisal. The Iraqi monarchy had been installed by the British when they created the Iraqi state after the first World War. Chalabi's father was a member of the Faisal's Council of Ministers and president of the senate nominated by Faisal and set up to provide the Iraqi monarchy with a democratic facade. The Chalabi family fled to Jordan when King Faisal II was overthrown in 1958 by Qasim's group of army officers who had allegedly acted in collusion with the Iraqi Communist Party. Years later, Chalabi amassed a great deal of wealth as a banker in Jordan. However, in 1989, Chalabi was found guilty of embezzlement and fraud in a military court in Jordan and was sentenced to 22 years. Chalabi reportedly fled Jordan in the trunk of a car with over $20 million. It was alleged that during his association with the bank Chalabi embezzled nearly $70 million and stashed it in secret Swiss bank accounts. The financial improprieties that Chalabi was found to have been directly involved in led to the collapse the Jordanian bank he directed, Petra Bank. At the time of its crash, Petra was the third-largest bank in Jordan, and the Jordanian government was forced to pay out $200 million to depositors who faced the loss of their savings. In 1992, Mr Chalabi was tried in absentia and sentenced by a Jordanian court to 22 years jail on 31 charges of embezzlement, theft, misuse of depositor funds and currency speculation. A report by Arthur Andersen subsequently found that Chalabi's Petra Bank's assets had been overstated by some $200 million. Many of the bank's bad loans were to Chalabi-linked companies in Switzerland and Lebanon. A detailed 500-page Technical Committee Report was subsequently compiled for the Jordanian military attorney-general on June 10, 1990. In the report Chalabi was named as being the man at Petra Bank who was directly responsible for "fictitious deposits and entries to make the income ... appear larger." To this day, Chalabi insists that the charges were politically charged and the fact that there has never been formal extradition attempts prove the case was not genuine. Chalabi is considered by experts to be a long-time collaborator with the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at the Pentagon. After fleeing Jordan, Chalabi went to Europe and founded the INC in 1992 at a meeting of some anti-Saddam Hussein exiles held in Vienna, Austria. James Woolsey, who became the Director of the CIA under President Bill Clinton, made Chalabi's INC the cutting-edge of the CIA's operations against Saddam Hussein. Chalabi allegedly became Woolsey's blue-eyed boy and the INC became the most favored recipient of CIA funds meant for the overthrow of Saddam, according to Raman. In the 1980s, when he was associated with the Petra Bank, Chalabi, who was allegedly helping the Mossad, the Israeli external intelligence agency, used to visit Israel secretly. During those visits, he became close to the late Albert Wohlstetter, who is reputed to be "a godfather of the neoconservative movement in the US," according to Raman. Chalabi had met Wohlstetter during his student days at the University of Chicago, Raman wrote, but the friendship became close only after their meetings in Israel. Through Wohlstetter, Chalabi became acquainted with Richard Perle, who was Under-Secretary of Defence for international-security policy under President Reagan, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, both of whom served under President Ronald Reagan. Perle, as chief of the Defence Policy Advisory Board, has been a strong supporter of Chalabi, but the CIA and the State Department have serious reservations about him. Chalabi's criminal past notwithstanding, Chalabi is today being presented as the possible head of an interim Iraqi authority to provide an Iraqi face for what is likely to become an extended U.S. military occupation of Iraq. "He is tipped to occupy an important post in the US occupation regime in Baghdad to create a new Iraqi intelligence agency, which would be loyal to the USA and protect its national interests," Raman wrote. On April 16, two close associates of Chalabi said they had been elected mayor and governor of Baghdad by tribal and religious chiefs acting with the consent of the U.S. government. INC General Jaudat Obeidi who, prior to his return to Iraq, had reportedly lived in exile in Oregon claimed he had been selected mayor of Baghdad. And, with a massive media entourage, Mohammed Mohsen Zubeidi, proclaimed himself governor of a new interim administration for Baghdad. A spokesman for the U.S. Marines in Baghdad denied that the United States has recognized anyone to head up a new Iraqi government.
I agree that the pentagon and the CIA are looking like absolute morons right about now. I don't understand why Tenet didn't get bounced a long time ago. Not to say that democrats will really benefit from this - neither side has much operational credibility at this point. Given that Bush is still the favorite in November, the big winner is probably Colin Powell and the state department.
BWA-HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA you're a fuckin' retard if you believe this shit - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1224075,00.html US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war · Inquiry into Tehran's role in starting conflict · Top Pentagon ally Chalabi accused 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." Mr Chalabi has vehemently rejected the allegations as "a lie, a fib and silly". He accused the CIA director, George Tenet, of a smear campaign against himself and Mr Habib. However, it is clear that the CIA - at loggerheads with Mr Chalabi for more than eight years - believes it has caught him red-handed, and is sticking to its allegations. "The suggestion that Chalabi is a victim of a smear campaign is outrageous," a US intelligence official said. "It's utter nonsense. He passed very sensitive and classified information to the Iranians. We have rock solid information that he did that." "As for Aras Karim [Habib] being a paid agent for Iranian intelligence, we have very good reason to believe that is the case," added the intelligence official, who did not want to be named. He said it was unclear how long this INC-Iranian collaboration had been going on, but pointed out that Mr Chalabi had had overt links with Tehran "for a long period of time". An intelligence source in Washington said the CIA confirmed its long-held suspicions when it discovered that a piece of information from an electronic communications intercept by the National Security Agency had ended up in Iranian hands. The information was so sensitive that its circulation had been restricted to a handful of officials. "This was 'sensitive compartmented information' - SCI - and it was tracked right back to the Iranians through Aras Habib," the intelligence source said. Advertiser links Volunteer Internationally Experience a country from a whole new perspective by signing... crossculturalsolutions.org Volunteer in Nepal The Global Volunteer Network has volunteer opportunities... volunteer.org.nz $1 Can Help NYC Children Volunteer and help a charity build the confidence and... learningleaders.org Mr Habib, a Shia Kurd who is being sought by Iraqi police since a raid on INC headquarters last week, has been Mr Chalabi's righthand man for more than a decade. He ran a Pentagon-funded intelligence collection programme in the run-up to the invasion and put US officials in touch with Iraqi defectors who made claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Those claims helped make the case for war but have since proved groundless, and US intelligence agencies are now scrambling to determine whether false information was passed to the US with Iranian connivance. INC representatives in Washington did not return calls seeking comment. But Laurie Mylroie, a US Iraq analyst and one of the INC's most vocal backers in Washington, dismissed the allegations as the product of a grudge among CIA and state department officials driven by a pro-Sunni, anti-Shia bias. She said that after the CIA raised questions about Mr Habib's Iranian links, the Pentagon's Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) conducted a lie-detector test on him in 2002, which he passed with "flying colours". The DIA is also reported to have launched its own inquiry into the INC-Iran link. An intelligence source in Washington said the FBI investigation into the affair would begin with Mr Chalabi's "handlers" in the Pentagon, who include William Luti, the former head of the office of special plans, and his immediate superior, Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defence for policy. There is no evidence that they were the source of the leaks. Other INC supporters at the Pentagon may have given away classified information in an attempt to give Mr Chalabi an advantage in the struggle for power surrounding the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government on June 30. The CIA allegations bring to a head a dispute between the CIA and the Pentagon officials instrumental in promoting Mr Chalabi and his intelligence in the run-up to the war. By calling for an FBI counter-intelligence investigation, the CIA is, in effect, threatening to disgrace senior neo-conservatives in the Pentagon. "This is people who opposed the war with long knives drawn for people who supported the war," Ms Mylroie said.
It's not surprising that Bush&Co relies on people such as Chalabi... it vindicates the opinion that the Civilized World has of the current American regime...
For those of you who haven't checked out the neonazi...err...neocon mecca known as the Project for a New American Century, this should dispel any notions that this whole thing was started by the Iranians. Here are the very damning and very absurdly ideological documents on Iraq that Perle, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld in most cases co-wrote : http://newamericancentury.org/iraqmiddleeast2000-1997.htm