can someone explain the Chalabi raid to me?

That wasn't worth it, was it.

... everyone.

Rumsfeld et al: "Duhhhh....OKAY!" *throws aside every other possible plan and mountains of research and tons of memos saying, 'You know, there are better ways...'*

(One invasion and billions wasted and a slew of American soldiers dead or wounded later.)

Various other opposing political voices in Iraq to Chalabi: "HI DERE."

Chalabi: "Oh dear. I better start mouthing off more against the coalition in public because right now my support consists of five guys named Earl and I don't want to die when they leave."

Rumsfeld et al: "Jesus Christ, WHO APPROVED THIS PLAN ANYWAY?"

Flunky: "Um, you did sir."

Rumsfeld: "Shaddap!"

*allegedly* Chalabi: "Hezbollah! My friends!"

Rumsfeld: "That's it, you're gone. Even though nearly everything we ever did was because of you, you're gone."

(Curtain descends on act one)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1221084,00.html

Chalabi's been making various noises against the coalition for a while now. I'm not entirely surprised by this but I am perversely tickled.

now how about explaining the oil-for-food scandal?

Hmm...

There were about a dozen troops and at least two army Humvees at the scene.

Several armed Westerners were also seen, wearing flak jackets and using unlicensed vehicles, assumed to be American private security officers, Associated Press reported

They're getting pretty bad at lying these days. Need to hire somebody else.

I am beginning to think that the proper historic analogy for what Dubya is trying to do in Iraq is the mid-19th century movement by France, urged on by Mexican emigres living in Paris, that invented a Mexican monarchy and put an Austrian aristocrat on that throne. This government had scant popular support and even fewer resources, and before long was overthrown by Santa Anna.

Of course, the biggest difference is that Maximilian I was in Mexico City, where he was conquered and executed, while Bush II is not actually in Baghdad.

Mr Chalabi said when the US turned on its friends, it was in big trouble.

Troops surrounded Mr Chalabi's house in the upmarket Mansour district and removed computers and documents.

Mr Chalabi has become increasingly distanced from Washington after openly challenging how much power the coalition was ceding to Iraqis.

After the 2003 war, the Iraqi National Congress leader was a favourite of the Pentagon and tipped to lead Iraq.

But following Thursday's raid he said: "I am America's best friend in Iraq; if the CPA finds it necessary to direct an armed attack against my home you can see the state of relations between the CPA and the Iraqi people."

Brandishing a framed picture on which the glass was shattered, he accused troops and police of rousing him from his bed, ransacking his office, removing documents and a valuable copy of the Koran and "vandalising" his belongings.

---

The INC has received millions of dollars from the US since its foundation in the 1990s.

But US officials said on Tuesday the Pentagon had cut off some $340,000 a month in funding to the party - payments that were made in part for intelligence gathered by the INC.

Deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz said the decision "was made in light of the process of transferring sovereignty to the Iraqi people".

On Wednesday Mr Chalabi said in a BBC interview that Iraqis should have complete control over oil, development and property currently in US hands.

"The Iraqi Governing Council will clearly define what sovereignty means," he told Radio 4's Today programme.

In an angry outburst on Thursday, he said: "Let my people go. Let my people be free. It is time for the Iraqi people to run their affairs."

And my new favorite tool Senor says that Bremer was told about all this after the fact. Indeed.

Who gets to be Sheridan?

It is a mark of Chalabi's character that he has gained such a large band of volunteer advisers and supporters not only among Iraqis but also in England and the US. And despite being as fractious a group as any set of exile political figures, and quite diverse, the Iraqis who have joined the INC have continued to keep Chalabi as their clear leader despite the year-long effort of the State Department to find an alternative under the cover of "broadening and unifying the opposition."

Chalabi's admirers today also include leading academic experts on the Middle East who have known him well for many years, such as Fouad Ajami, a Lebanese Arab who is the author of the much-admired book The Dream Palace of the Arabs, and Bernard Lewis, probably the premier scholar of Islam in the world. A number of U.S. senators have also come to know him, including Joseph Lieberman and Trent Lott.

Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz all know from their personal contact with Chalabi — and their own checks of his background — that the State/CIA view of him as a small-time exile opportunist of shady character is wrong. They believe, on the contrary, that Chalabi is a man who has the character, vision, and strength needed to become an outstanding leader who can help move the Arab world away from the path of anti-American and backward-looking tyranny and toward a path of struggle toward modernity and democracy. If their assessment of him is sound, Chalabi could be the key figure in the success of President George W. Bush's new policy against terrorism, tyranny and threats of biological and nuclear war.

Differences of emphasis and nuance in the judgment about key facts and personalities are natural, but the gap in understanding between State and CIA on one side and Chalabi's admirers on the other is impossibly wide.

One side or the other must have the facts wrong. And the question of which group is correct about Chalabi is crucial for U.S. policy. Bush should do whatever he needs to do to decide who is right and to make a policy decision about whether the U.S. is going to support Chalabi. We cannot afford to take the chance of sacrificing such a decisively valuable potential partner out of reluctance to come to grips with an uncertainty, especially one that seems to be the product of bureaucratic enmities and Saudi fears of what would happen if a great Arab democrat came to power nearby.

That *was* the NR's take, or at least one of their writers. I presume they're going to be clearing their throat rather embarassedly for the next couple of weeks if they haven't already been doing so for a while. In terms of Iraq today, search me, but I suspect he is a known figure yet probably not as important as he thinks he is.

If I was ever to volunteer for the role of American colonial puppet, I would hope to play my role with the same panache that Ahmad Chalabi has brought to the part. Denounced only last month by yet another anonymous "report" from the CIA and sneered at on a daily basis by the New York Times, he has either failed to be sufficiently biddable by the puppet-masters or (how simple it all seems when you think of it) has cleverly arranged to be the object of his own disinformation campaign.

Very simple indeed, ya prick. PLEASE somebody track what his followup will be.

Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi said a raid on his compound Thursday was engineered by Baathists who control the Iraqi police and who are now protected by the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Senior coalition law enforcement and justice officials said the raid on the compound of the Iraqi National Congress was part of an investigation of "suspected fraud in a government ministry."

Chalabi -- who is head of finance in the Iraqi Governing Council and leader of the INC -- was not named in the warrant.

Iraqi police and U.S. military personnel who conducted the raid took away computers and documents but arrested no one, Chalabi told reporters at a Baghdad news conference.

Chalabi, who was previously a close adviser to the Pentagon, said the CPA is dissatisfied with his demands for Iraq's provisional government to be given full control of the Iraqi Army after the June 30 handover and for control of the investigation of fraud in the U.N. oil-for-food program.

"When America treats its friends this way, then they are in big trouble," Chalabi said.

He called Thursday's raid "the penultimate act of failure of the CPA in Iraq."

He said his relationship with the CPA is now "nonexistent."

When asked about that comment, CPA spokesman Dan Senor only noted that Chalabi "worked closely with us over a number of months."

Senor said questions about the raid should be addressed to the Iraqi police. "It was an Iraqi-led investigation, an Iraqi-led raid.

"It was the result of Iraqi arrest warrants," he said.

That first point is...interesting.

Chalabi said an emergency meeting of the Iraqi Governing Council has been called for Friday afternoon to respond to the raid. When asked what could be expected, he said, "Wait and see."

---

Chalabi's nephew, Salim Chalabi, who serves as Iraq's war crimes prosecutor, said U.S. military personnel and Iraqi police entered his uncle's home with their weapons drawn, threatened Chalabi's security personnel, put a gun to Chalabi's head and threatened him.

Iraqi National Congress spokesman Entifadh Qanbar, speaking to CNN from Washington, said the compound was raided "in a very savage way.... Doors were smashed despite the offer to unlock it. Computers were smashed. Even pictures on the wall were smashed. Even his holy Koran, his personal holy Koran was taken as a document."

Chalabi was the champion of a plan to rid Iraq of Baath Party influence that has caused rancor among many Iraqis. He said Thursday's raid was led by Baathists who have been given power by the CPA.

Chalabi said the Iraqi police have been "completely subverted" by Baathists.

He said his dissatisfaction is not with President Bush, but with Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer.

"My message to CPA is let my people go," Chalabi said. "Let my people be free. We are grateful to President Bush for liberating Iraq but it is time for Iraqi people to run their affairs."

---

He is believed to have been a source of information alleging that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which have not been discovered since Saddam's regime fell.

When asked about that issue Thursday, Chalabi said he still believes Iraq had WMDs that are "hidden."

"They must be found. They constitute a danger to the Iraqi people," he said. "We will look for them after sovereignty."

Even as the Iraq war approached, I still enjoyed reading his columns, even though I strongly disagreed with him, because (a) his human rights-based arguments at least resonated with me, and (b) he seemed to really believe those arguments (i.e., wasn't just cynically growling "rape rooms!"), and he made them well and forcefully (if not "convincingly").

But now, he's just embarrassing...

So a Sarin-infected device is exploded in Iraq, and across the border in Jordan the authorities say that nerve and gas weapons have been discovered for use against them by the followers of Zarqawi, who was in Baghdad well before the invasion. Where, one idly inquires, did these toys come from? No, it couldn't be.

my money is that it's pics of rumsfeld eating baby heads

The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, also said Iraqis were responsible for the raid and he had not been informed.

But Mr Chalabi told the BBC that such an operation could not have been launched without the full approval of the US authorities in Iraq.

He said the Americans felt challenged by his influence, given his demands that full, not partial, sovereignty be handed over to the Iraqi people - along with total control of the nation's assets.

"I am a friend of the United States," he told the World Service's Newshour. "But I challenge the CPA because they are moving against Iraqi interests and against American interests in trying to impose something that is not workable in Iraq."

Frankly, this is all so rich. I REALLY want something to break wide open because of this.

Even in Kuwait, support for the U.S. stance was at best "tepid" and "cynical over U.S. motives," the press recognized. "Voices in the
streets of the Arab world, from Cairo's teeming slums to the Arabian Peninsula's shiny capitals, have been rising in anger as the
American drumbeat of war against Iraq grows louder," Boston Globe correspondent Charles Sennott reported.

The Iraqi democratic opposition was granted a slight exposure in the mainstream, breaking the previous pattern. In a telephone
interview with the New York Times, Ahmed Chalabi reiterated the position that had been reported in greater detail in London weeks
earlier: "Without a political plan to remove Saddam's regime, military strikes will be counter-productive," he argued, killing
thousands of Iraqis, leaving Saddam perhaps even strengthened along with his weapons of mass destruction and with "an excuse to
throw out UNSCOM [the UN inspectors]," who have in fact destroyed vastly more weapons and production facilities than the 1991
bombing. U.S./UK plans would "be worse than nothing." Interviews with opposition leaders from several groups found "near
unanimity" in opposing military action that did not lay the basis for an uprising to overthrow Saddam. Speaking to a Parliamentary
committee, Chalabi held that it was "morally indefensible to strike Iraq without a strategy" for removing Saddam."

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/Rogue_States_Chom.html

"

Despite its substantial victory, Washington has not yet achieved "the best of all worlds," as Friedman observes, because no suitable clone of the Beast of
Baghdad has yet emerged to serve the interests of the U.S. and its regional allies. Needless to say, not everyone shares the Washington-media conception of
"the best of all worlds." Well after the hostilities ended, the Wall Street Journal, to its credit, broke ranks and offered space to a spokesman for the Iraqi
democratic opposition, London-based banker Ahmad Chalabi. He described the outcome as "the worst of all possible worlds" for the Iraqi people, whose
tragedy is "awesome."15 From the perspective of Iraqi democrats, remote from that of Washington and New York, restoration of the "iron fist" would not be
"the best of all worlds."
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199110--.htm

then the kicker:

"Seventy per cent of Iraqis said they wanted real democracy under the control of Iraqis. The coalition authority had maybe five per cent, the Iraqi
Governing Council six per cent. They literally found no detectable support, zero, for Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon’s favorite. They listed the six most popular
political leaders, one of them was Saddam Hussein and it goes on like this. What the poll said and what the BBC didn’t report is that Iraqis want authentic
democracy, they don’t want the British troops, they don’t want American troops, they want to run their own security. They don’t trust the Governing Council,
they don’t trust the Iraqi parties, they want to run their own affairs."
--http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20040402.htm

You know, A Certain Someone hasn't been posting on these threads for a couple of days. Strange.

Anyway, whether or not this is some sort of shell game, Chalabi's people seem to be going out of their way to try to sell him to Sistani's supporters - they 'took his personal Koran'? Give me a break.

American officials are still not commenting publicly on why Mr Chalabi's home and offices were raided.

They say - implausibly - that the raid was the work of the Iraq police and was nothing to do with them.

Off the record, however, in briefings in Baghdad, they have told journalists that members of Mr Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC) - but not apparently Mr Chalabi himself - stand accused of kidnapping, torture, embezzlement and misuse of government property.

U.S. officials believe they have "rock solid" evidence that Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi (search), once a darling of the American government, passed secrets to Iran, Fox News has learned.

"There is no need for an investigation because we're quite certain he did it," one senior Bush administration official said.

The official first described the evidence against Chalabi as "pretty solid" and then characterized it as "rock solid."

U.S. officials won't describe the information Chalabi's alleged to have passed to Iran or how he's supposed to have obtained it, but they said he does not have the clearance to possess American classified information

---

Senior Department of Defense officials told Fox News that early reports that U.S. troops were involved in the actual raid itself were untrue. Instead, they said, soldiers provided a security perimeter but didn't accompany Iraqi police inside the Chalabi house.

So clearly no involvement, then. As for my highlighted part, it's good to see that the same basic 'we believe it so it must be true' philosophy of the White House remains unchanged.

Chalabi's repeated emphasis of this point shows pretty clearly which crowd he now hopes to play to.

The US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council has criticised Thursday's raid on the home and party HQ of one of its leading members, Ahmed Chalabi.
Council members meeting in Baghdad to discuss Thursday's events blamed the US-led coalition for the raid and said they would seek an explanation.

---

The council adopted a statement criticising the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) for not giving advance notice of the raids and for what it described as the rough behaviour of Iraqi police during the raid.

An official attending the meeting told Reuters news agency that everyone present thought the coalition was behind the raid.

The raid by Iraqi police and U.S. agents of the home and political headquarters of controversial politician Ahmed Chalabi seems to mark the dramatic downfall of the man who has long been Washington's closest ally in Iraq.

But Chalabi's days in power may not be over. During the past year, he has amassed a large web of influence and control that stretches from the oil industry to the banking system to the purges of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

Analysts say that unless the Bush administration moves to dismantle his empire, Chalabi will continue controlling much of Iraq's politics from behind the scenes, and he could seriously disrupt American plans for turning over nominal sovereignty to a new Iraqi government on June 30

"The puzzle is why the Bush administration acted now, if there were rumors of financial improprieties back in December," said Juan Cole, a Middle East history professor at the University of Michigan who edits Informed Comment, an authoritative Web log on Iraq.

Cole answered his own question: "You act on them now to neutralize Chalabi's opposition to the Brahimi plan. The Bush people seem to really believe that his re-election depends on this transition of sovereignty. There seems to be the theory that if Iraq becomes independent, it will disappear as a huge story. The focus of the public will change, people will say 'well, that's the Iraqis' own business,' and it won't be in the headlines after that. So if Chalabi is in the way, (Bush officials) absolutely have to get rid of him."

Cole said the Bush administration must act quickly to remove Chalabi from the Governing Council and dismantle the rest of his network. "Chalabi is a powerful chameleon, and his power won't go away" if the U.S. actions against him end with Thursday's raid, he added. "We'll see whether this continues."

The general charge that Mr. Chalabi provided Iran with critical American intelligence secrets was widely reported last month after the Bush administration cut off financial aid to Mr. Chalabi's organization, the Iraqi National Congress, and American and Iraqi security forces raided his Baghdad headquarters.

The Bush administration, citing national security concerns, asked The New York Times and other news organizations not to publish details of the case. The Times agreed to hold off publication of some specific information that top intelligence officials said would compromise a vital, continuing intelligence operation. The administration withdrew its request on Tuesday, saying information about the code-breaking was starting to appear in news accounts.

Mr. Chalabi and his aides have said he knew of no secret information related to Iran and therefore could not have communicated any intelligence to Tehran.

American officials said that about six weeks ago, Mr. Chalabi told the Baghdad station chief of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security that the United States was reading the communications traffic of the Iranian spy service, one of the most sophisticated in the Middle East.

According to American officials, the Iranian official in Baghdad, possibly not believing Mr. Chalabi's account, sent a cable to Tehran detailing his conversation with Mr. Chalabi, using the broken code. That encrypted cable, intercepted and read by the United States, tipped off American officials to the fact that Mr. Chalabi had betrayed the code-breaking operation, the American officials said.

American officials reported that in the cable to Tehran, the Iranian official recounted how Mr. Chalabi had said that one of "them" — a reference to an American — had revealed the code-breaking operation, the officials said. The Iranian reported that Mr. Chalabi said the American was drunk.

The Iranians sent what American intelligence regarded as a test message, which mentioned a cache of weapons inside Iraq, believing that if the code had been broken, United States military forces would be quickly dispatched to the specified site. But there was no such action.

The account of Mr. Chalabi's actions has been confirmed by several senior American officials, who said the leak contributed to the White House decision to break with him.

Given the complete lack of other plausible motives, it seems quite reasonable to assume that Chalabi was an Iranian agent, as has been rumored, and therefore this Iraqi war has been orchestrated by the Iranian intelligence service as a way of ridding Iraq of Saddam, getting revenge on the US for its aid to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war, and acquiring an oil-rich Shiia ally on the cheap.

Oooooh! How I wish some enterprising journalist would crack this story wide open before the US election. It would be ever so lovely.

It was no secret that the USA fervently hoped to overthrow Saddam and was feverishly looking for dissident groups who could engineer such a coup. Why not provide us with one? Once they established a conduit, all they needed to do was provide a flow of information to the CIA to keep it riled up about Saddam and WMD.

You must recall that the CIA had almost no human sources of their own in Iraq. Saddam was quite capable of seeing to that. Detecting internal enemies was his forte. Lacking thier own resources, they could easily be led to rely on Chalabi's sources - which were in fact Iranian sources. It is altogether likely that Iran would have had a better network of agents in Iraq than any other country on earth.

After 9/11, when Bush started to demand intelligence to justify an invasion, those demands would have passed directly to Chalabi and thence to Iran. Handed a golden opportunity, they would have used it. Given such fertile ground on which to plant it, is there any doubt that every seed of disinformation sprouted as planned and desired?

The majority of the information would be true enough to lend it credence. The key disinformation would be to make ineffective programs seem more effective than they were. Saddam is developing unmanned drone aircraft (true) soon to be capable of striking hundreds of miles beyond Iraq's borders (false).

It would have been child's play, mainly because BushCo was willfully overlooking the inconclusive nature of the intel. All the Iranians had to do was supply the proper fuel for the fire.

like I said, it's happened before, and with a nearly identical set of people.

Iran / Contra Rehab
by David Corn
The Nation magazine, March 11, 2002

The Bush Administration is turning into one big rehab center for the Iran/contra schemers of the Reagan/Bush White House. The latest case involves retired Adm. John Poindexter, who's been hired by the Pentagon to head a new agency, the Information Awareness Office. Created after September I 1 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, it is developing high-tech systems to provide government officials immediate access to new surveillance and information-analysis systems. Its focus, of course, includes terrorist groups.

Poindexter certainly has extensive experience dealing with terrorists. As Ronald Reagan's National Security Adviser, he was a key mover in the Iran/contra scandal of the 1980s, when the Reagan White House tried to pull off a secret arms-for-hostages deal with the terrorist-supporting regime of Iran. Poindexter also was one of the few Reagan officials who, according to the available evidence, knew that proceeds from the arguably illicit arms sales to Iran were diverted to the Nicaraguan contras. He later testified that he had deliberately withheld information from Reagan on the diversion because "I wanted the President to have some deniability so that he would be protected."

After the arms-for-hostages deal became public in late 1986, Poindexter "repeatedly laid out a false version" in order to distance Reagan from the most questionable weapons transactions, according to Iran/contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh. Poindexter, with his aide Oliver North, also attempted to shred and destroy records regarding their Iran/contra activities.
Poindexter was tried and convicted of five felonies, including obstructing official inquiries and Iying to Congress. He was sentenced to six months in prison. But he walked. In a two-to-one decision in 1991, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned Poindexter's convictions on the ground that his trial had been tainted by his immunized Congressional testimony. (North, convicted of three counts, avoided jail for the same reason.) This was escape, not vindication. Since leaving government service, Poindexter, a physicist by training, has been active as a military technology consultant. But the record remains: Poindexter admitted withholding information from his boss, he destroyed government documents and he misled official investigators. Does that sound like someone to entrust with a new government agency?

No problemo for the Bushies. They have happily provided homes to other Iran/contra reprobates. Elliott Abrams, who as Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America in the Reagan years supervised contra policy, pleaded guilty to two charges of withholding information from Congress. Today, the fellow who downplayed reports of military massacres in Central America works for the National Security Council, overseeing human rights and democracy issues. (Abrams was pardoned by Bush I.)

Otto Reich ran a State Department office during the Iran/ contra affair that "engaged in prohibited covert propaganda," according to a government inquiry. Now he has Abrams's old job at State. John Negroponte was US Ambassador to Honduras and facilitated a clandestine quid pro quo deal, under which the Reagan Administration sent aid to Honduras in return for Honduran assistance to the contras, at a time when Congress had banned the Administration from assisting the contras. Negroponte's embassy also suppressed information about human rights abuses committed by the Honduran military. Negroponte is currently our UN ambassador.

Perhaps the most significant Iran/contra rehabilitation concerns the President's father: "41" was an Iran/contra ringleader who lied about his role. After the scandal broke, Bush claimed he had not been "in the loop." But according to documents later released) he had attended high-level meetings on the Iran initiative and had participated in the Administration's quid pro quo with Honduras. It was only after Bush I was bounced out of office that his personal diary notes-long sought by investigators-became available. His entry for November 5, 1986 (two days after the Iran initiative was revealed by a Lebanese weekly), reads, "I'm one of the few people that know fully the details.... This is one operation that has been held very, very tight, and I hope it will not leak." That boastful note wins Bush the Elder a top spot in the roster of Iran/contra prevaricators. Yet he went on to become a rather important adviser to a high-ranking member of the present Administration.

There has been one exception to the all-is-forgiven rule at the Bush II White House. In October, Duane Clarridge, a CIA official involved in the scandal who was indicted for Iying to Congress, was set to become an assistant in the NSC's counterterrorism office. But then the White House yanked the welcome mat. In speaking to one reporter, a disappointed Clarridge cited Abrams, noting that, unlike Abrams, he had not pleaded guilty. (Clarridge was pardoned by Daddy Bush before his case could be tried.) Poor guy, he does have a point. Why embrace Abrams-and Poindexter, Reich and Negroponte-but not Clarridge? Was secretly mining Nicaragua's harbor, a Clarridge initiative that earned a World Court ruling against the United States, worse than shredding, or Iying to Congress, or covering up human rights abuses?

So is there anyone left to be rehabilitated? Oliver North has a good gig at Fox News, where he shares his expert opinions on how to deal with terrorists. (Sell them missiles and bring them a nice cake?) Richard Secord, the wheeling-dealing general-turned-arms-merchant who managed North's secret contra supply operation, may well be seeking business opportunities arising from the war on terrorism. Perhaps retired Gen. John Singlaub could be assigned a mission. Recently, at a conference of conservatives I bumped into Singlaub, who ran the World Anti-Communist League in the 1 980s and plotted with North to raise money covertly for the contras from foreign countries. Are you active these days? I asked. "Yes," he said, adding no more. Same sort of stuff as always? "Yes," he replied and shifted his feet. Like what? I asked. He stalked off. The man can still keep a secret-sign him up. By the way, Robert McFarlane, Poindexter's predecessor as National Security Adviser and a co-author of the Iran deal and the contra policy, re-emerged in October as an adviser to an anti-Taliban Afghan fighter who was ambushed and killed during a botched operation. Maybe there's a spot available for him. When it comes to personnel, Iran/contra is no stigma for the Bush clan. In most instances, it seems to be a mark of honor.

SINGAPORE (AP) _ The United States will make fundamental changes
in its troop presence on the Korean Peninsula as well as in Europe,
where U.S. defenses have stood guard against threats that have
disappeared or no longer require such a large force, Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday.
`It's time to adjust those locations from static defense to a
more agile and a more capable and a more 21st century posture,''
Rumsfeld said.

NAJAF, Iraq - Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi accused CIA director George Tenet on Thursday of being responsible for allegations that the former exile leader passed intelligence information to Iran.

Chalabi, a former member of the Iraqi Governing Council, made the accusation after President Bush announced that Tenet was stepping down as CIA director for personal reasons.

Tenet's announcement came amid new storms over intelligence issues, including an alleged Pentagon leak of highly classified intelligence to Chalabi.

Chalabi told reporters that Tenet "was behind the charges against me that claimed that I gave intelligence information to Iran. I denied these charges and I will deny them again."

In Washington, a U.S. law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FBI is examining whether Pentagon officials who had frequent contacts with Chalabi may have leaked sensitive information that U.S. intelligence had broken Iran's secret communications codes.

Chalabi, a longtime favorite of the Pentagon, is at the center of a controversy over whether he then shared with Iranian officials the closely guarded information about methods used by the United States to spy on the Iranian regime.

The New York Times reported in its Thursday editions that federal investigators have started giving polygraph tests to civilian Pentagon employees in attempt to determine who may have disclosed the highly classified intelligence.

Although Chalabi was close to the Pentagon for years, the CIA favored another Iraqi exile figure, Iyad Allawi, who was named prime minister of the interim government due to take power in Iraq on June 30. Allawi headed an organization made up of former Iraqi army officers who tried unsuccessfully to oust Saddam.

Speaking to reporters, Chalabi lashed out at Tenet, saying the effects of his policies toward Iraq over the past years "have been not helpful to say the least."

"He continued attempting to make a coup d'etat against Saddam in the face of all possible evidence that this would be unsuccessful," Chalabi said. "His policies caused the death of hundreds of Iraqis in this futile efforts."

Chalabi also accused Tenet of providing "erroneous information about weapons of mass destruction to President Bush, which caused the government much embarrassment at the United Nations and his own country."

U.S. officials have said much of the information about Saddam's banned weapons programs came from Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. No major banned weapons stockpiles have been found.

All that is certain is that Chalabi appears to be under arrest, but is allowed to talk extensively to reporters, George Tenet is stepping down as DCI, and most of what the media writes about all this is based on leaks - which could be real or stage-managed to look real. The world of cloak-and-dagger is damned hard to unpack.

As for Iran-Contra and BushCo, I agree that it is hugely relevant to the Iraq war and probably relevant to Chalabi. It's just that once you understand how ugly and cyncally driven the truth is likely to be, it's impossible to pick which scenario is correct. They're all so butt-ugly any one would be a winner.

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/tt/2004/tt040603.gif