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mikest
PO2
Joined: 11 May 2004
Posts: 377
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 Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 12:38 am Post subject: Neo-Con favorite is accused of giving info to Iran |
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This is the man that the White House backed against the advice of the CIA and State Department. The INC has received about $26 million dollars to produce evidence about weapons and Chalabi was also the Administrations choice to lead Iraq. Even as the evidence was piling up that not only was he lying about the WMD's, the administration backed him. He has even admitted in the past that the lies did not matter because they got us to go into Iraq.
This administration has refused to hold anyone accountable for any mistakes. Instead they continue to back them.
As George Will recently said: | Quote: | | This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts... Being steadfast in defense of carefully considered convictions is a virtue. Being blankly incapable of distinguishing cherished hopes from disappointing facts, or of reassessing comforting doctrines in face of contrary evidence, is a crippling political vice. |
[America's 'Best Friend' A Spy?
May 20, 2004
| Quote: | U.S. 'Friend' In Iraq A Spy?
(CBS/AP) In the latest setback for a man once seen as the possible leader of a free and democratic Iraq, Iraqi police backed by U.S. troops raided the Baghdad home and offices of Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi.
American soldiers and armed U.S. civilians could be seen milling about Chalabi's compound in the city's fashionable Mansour district. Some people could be seen loading boxes into vehicles. Aides said documents and computers were seized without warrants.
A senior coalition official said several people were arrested and that arrest warrants were issued for "up to 15 people" on allegations of "fraud, kidnapping and associated matters."
Senior U.S. officials told 60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl that they have evidence Chalabi has been passing highly-classified U.S. intelligence to Iran.
The evidence shows that Chalabi personally gave Iranian intelligence officers information so sensitive that if revealed it could, quote, "get Americans killed." The evidence is said to be "rock solid."
Sources have told Stahl a high-level investigation is underway into who in the U.S. government gave Chalabi such sensitive information in the first place.
In addition, sources told Stahl that one of Chalabi's closest confidantes — a senior member of his organization, the Iraqi national congress — is believed to have been recruited by Iran's intelligence agency, the Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS) — and is on their payroll.
Chalabi supporters suggested that the raid was politically motivated bid to intimidate the former exile, who has become extremely vocal in his criticism of Washington.
At a press conference after the raid, Chalabi lashed out at the ruling Coalition Provisional Authority, complaining it was coddling former members of Saddam's Baath Party and treating Iraqis badly.
"I am America's best friend in Iraq," Chalabi said. "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."
The raid was a symbol of how far Chalabi's stock has fallen in the eyes of U.S. officials.
In exile, Chalabi's U.S.-financed Iraqi National Congress provided intelligence information on Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Chalabi produced a string of defectors whose stories suggested that Saddam posed an imminent threat to the United States because of his weapons of mass destruction.
A key claim came from a Chalabi-sponsored defector who told U.S. intelligence that in order to evade U.N. inspectors, Saddam put his biological weapons labs in trucks.
The assertion that Saddam had mobile weapons labs was a major feature of Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the U.N. on why military action needed to be taken against Iraq.
"We know that Iraq has at least seven of these mobile biological agent factories. Ladies and gentlemen, these are sophisticated facilities. For example, they can produce anthrax and botulinum toxin. In fact, they can produce enough dry biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people," Powell said.
The flow of information caused Chalabi's star to rise in White House and Pentagon circles, despite some warning signs about his reliability.
For example, Chalabi, a former banker, was convicted of fraud in absentia in Jordan in 1992 in a banking scandal and sentenced to 22 years in jail. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Ironically enough, Chalabi's downfall began with an action he had enthusiastically supported: the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
No weapons of mass destruction - or mobile weapons labs - were found. As 60 Minutes reported, a postwar analysis by the government of Chalabi's defectors has found that many of them exaggerated - and that their information about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam's links to Al Qaeda was wrong.
In an interview with 60 Minutes, Chalabi minimized the importance of the defector who told of the mobile weapons labs.
"What he said is that these are mobile biological labs. He did not say that they are weapons factories. There's a big difference," Chalabi said.
Chalabi, who had returned to Iraq with a private army of 700 "freedom fighters" following the invasion, began to lose favor with U.S. officials as it became increasingly clear that much of information he supplied was suspect.
Chalabi holds a seat on the Iraqi Governing Council, but he has been unable to build a base of popular support with the Iraqi people.
The New York Times and the Washington Post report that Chalabi has been feuding with L. Paul Bremer, the American civilian administrator in Iraq. The Times quoted Chalabi aides as saying the former exile's relationship with Bremer was so bad that he skipped Governing Council meetings that Bremer attended.
Earlier this week, the U.S. ended the $340,000 monthly payment it was making to Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. That action was followed by the raid on his Baghdad home.
©MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
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hist/student
Lieutenant
Joined: 09 May 2004
Posts: 243
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 1:32 am Post subject: |
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unabashed comprehensive retraction
Last edited by hist/student on Fri Jul 23, 2004 11:29 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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mikest
PO2
Joined: 11 May 2004
Posts: 377
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 2:15 am Post subject: |
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I was mistaken. The INC received $33,000,000.
| Quote: | Chalabi's INC Received at Least $33 Million -Report
Thu May 20, 2004 06:49 PM ET
Printer Friendly | Email Article | Reprints | RSS (Page 1 of 2)
By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States paid Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress at least $33 million since March 2000, according to a congressional report made public on Thursday.
The report by the Government Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, found $33 million in funds from the State Department and did not include any funds from the Pentagon or other U.S. agencies, a congressional source told Reuters.
Chalabi, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, was once hailed by many in the Bush administration as the likely next leader of a post-Saddam Iraq.
But he has taken a fall after increasingly clashing with Washington on issues like how much power would be handed over to Iraqis when the country regains sovereignty on July 1.
U.S. officials this week said the Pentagon stopped funding the INC -- it had been giving roughly $340,000 a month -- with the final payment in May. On Thursday, U.S. troops and Iraqi police raided Chalabi's home in Baghdad and the INC offices. |
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Marine's Wife
PO3
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 267
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 2:22 am Post subject: subject |
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So did Billy Boy Clinton ! You remember ....the one of "Blue Dress vs. BIG WHITE BIBLE "fame!!  |
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mikest
PO2
Joined: 11 May 2004
Posts: 377
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 2:24 am Post subject: |
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| If only we could go back to a time where lying about a BJ in court was our big problem. Now we have a President who lies to get us into war or to pass medicare legislation. Aint progress grand? |
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stoked
Seaman Recruit
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 3:31 am Post subject: Mikest: No More Lying Please |
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| It's the constant lying of the politically motivated Democratic Party that has been getting our soldiers killed. Shame on you for justifying their despicable behavior. |
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mikest
PO2
Joined: 11 May 2004
Posts: 377
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 3:42 am Post subject: Re: Mikest: No More Lying Please |
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| stoked wrote: | | It's the constant lying of the politically motivated Democratic Party that has been getting our soldiers killed. Shame on you for justifying their despicable behavior. |
WTF? That was pretty intelligent. You have any links idiot? |
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mikest
PO2
Joined: 11 May 2004
Posts: 377
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 3:46 am Post subject: |
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| Which lies? The nukes, the uraneum, the moblie labs, the connection between Saddam and Al Queda? Or maybe the balsawood planes for distributing weapons. Alluminum tubes? Every one of these came from the admin, but that won't matter to you. |
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Navy_Navy_Navy
Admin
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 5777
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 3:59 am Post subject: |
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| mikest wrote: | | Which lies? The nukes, the uraneum, the moblie labs, the connection between Saddam and Al Queda? Or maybe the balsawood planes for distributing weapons. Alluminum tubes? Every one of these came from the admin, but that won't matter to you. |
Which admin, mikest?
Bet you can't name them. You'd chew your fingers off before you wrote the truth.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother |
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Marine's Wife
PO3
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 267
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 6:43 am Post subject: subject |
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I remember when China and N.Korea "stole","bought"? our top secrets..and all those computers in N. Mexico "just walked off" ..right under Bill Clinton's nose !
When anyone dared ask questions,we were told,"it's the economy stupid,just move on" ! |
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mikest
PO2
Joined: 11 May 2004
Posts: 377
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 6:51 am Post subject: |
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| Navy_Navy_Navy wrote: | | mikest wrote: | | Which lies? The nukes, the uraneum, the moblie labs, the connection between Saddam and Al Queda? Or maybe the balsawood planes for distributing weapons. Alluminum tubes? Every one of these came from the admin, but that won't matter to you. |
Which admin, mikest?
Bet you can't name them. You'd chew your fingers off before you wrote the truth. |
That would be this administration darling. The proof was out there, but you wouldn't listen. In case you missed the time that they were told, look back at the State Of The Union speech before last.
And n case you're wondering, Clinton's agreement has no bearing on this for me. I searched myself and found each of those claims wanting. |
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Navy_Navy_Navy
Admin
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 5777
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 7:20 am Post subject: |
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| mikest wrote: |
That would be this administration darling. The proof was out there, but you wouldn't listen. In case you missed the time that they were told, look back at the State Of The Union speech before last.
And n case you're wondering, Clinton's agreement has no bearing on this for me. I searched myself and found each of those claims wanting. |
LOL! I KNEW you couldn't say it!
Two administrations, mikest - working on exactly the same intel - one for eight years, one for eight months.
Even your candidate was rattling sabers at the sight of our intel back in 1998: http://swiftvets.com/VetsBB/viewtopic.php?t=247
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother |
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mikest
PO2
Joined: 11 May 2004
Posts: 377
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 7:41 am Post subject: |
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| And what did we do? We bombed the **** out of Iraq and hit some serious targets. Ask Scott Ritter, another person slimed by this admin for telling the truth. But what did you America haters do when Clinton bombed? You whined and cried that it was "Wag the Dog." If you had done the research yourself you would have seen that. But Fox didn't want you to. |
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mikest
PO2
Joined: 11 May 2004
Posts: 377
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 7:52 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Who will call the shots?
By Johanna McGeary
Monday, April 14, 2003 Posted: 2:10 PM EDT (1810 GMT)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The U.S. is looking for successors to Saddam. One is Ahmed Chalabi -- but some say he's yesterday's man.
Compared with the gilded Baghdad palaces from which Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, the bombed-out remains of an air-defense base a few miles outside the southern city of Nasiriyah don't look much like a headquarters for the country's next government.
The only intact building is a dusty, flea-infested warehouse that had no windows, no running water, no bathrooms. But that is where Ahmed Chalabi, the controversial leader of the once exiled Iraqi National Congress (I.N.C.), set up shop last week after the Pentagon airlifted him and some 600 fighters of his newly named Free Iraqi Forces into the heart of liberated Iraq.
Whether he was immersed in planning sessions, taking late-night sat-phone calls from the Pentagon or pacing pensively back and forth across the ramshackle warehouse, Chalabi operated like a man on a mission.
He issued a statement calling on Iraqis to "join with us" in flushing out the rest of Saddam's regime. He insisted that he was not expecting to run Iraq. "It is what the Iraqis want that I think is most important," he told TIME.
But the preparations around him--a Pentagon liaison briefing his bodyguards on how to usher him in and out of crowds, religious leaders organized to stump for him before he spoke--bore all the hallmarks of a presidential campaign.
The Shi'ite exile, 58, has spent the past quarter-century positioning himself as the leading opponent of Saddam. In the process, he has accumulated as much contempt as admiration. Last week's stage-managed arrival made it look as if the U.S. was anointing Chalabi to lead Iraq.
Yet if his supporters in the Pentagon hoped to convert him into a ready-made replacement for Saddam, Chalabi's very appearance on the scene sparked sharp resistance. Some State Department officials who have long regarded Chalabi as a divisive, untrustworthy figure charged that he is more popular on the Potomac than on the Tigris.
As the war for military control of Iraq comes to a close, the struggle for political control is just beginning. For two decades, Saddam ruthlessly eliminated political opponents, leaving Iraq with no recognized leader-in-waiting. War planners had hoped that some resistance hero might surface during the fight or that top army officers would defect to form the nucleus of a new regime.
Neither happened, and now dozens of powerful tribes, religious organizations and ethnic groups, as well as exiles, are jockeying to fill the vacuum. The U.S. has to be careful. It's just possible that the worst thing Washington could do is handpick a winner, who would be tainted as an American puppet.
The dangers of that were apparent in Najaf, where the mob murder of a pro-American Shi'ite cleric last week showed how lethal such an image can be.
For the time being, retired Lieut. General Jay Garner will be in charge as he puts his Pentagon-assembled team of 200 U.S. officials in command of Iraq's day-to-day affairs. But the Bush Administration and, in particular, Pentagon hard-liners want to crank up a new government at a lightning pace so U.S. forces can hand off authority to Iraqis before occupation becomes a dirty word.
Garner said he hoped to do that in 90 days. But even Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, one of the authors of the U.S. plan and a staunch champion of Chalabi, acknowledged that the process could take six months or more. It's already messy. Hours after the northern city of Kirkuk fell to the Kurds, dozens of political rivals opened shop, spray painting their party initials on walls and posting gunmen at their doors.
When British forces tapped a tribal chieftain who formerly served in the Baath Party to organize governance in Basra, rioting protesters surrounded the sheik's house. Just a few days of the post-Saddam era have shown how hard it will be to find new leaders that all Iraqis can accept.
Step One will unfold this week as the Bush Administration convenes the first in a series of regional caucuses to nominate members of the Iraqi Interim Authority (I.I.A.). The Authority is intended to put an Iraqi face on the occupation, advising but not controlling Garner's crew while it attempts to restore the country's civil, social and economic functions.
Chalabi jumped the gun by scheduling the first meeting. But shortly afterward, U.S. officials pointedly asserted control over the timing, location and guest list.
That list will include well-known opposition figures who have significant followers and a military presence on Iraqi soil. The sometimes fractious Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani will surely attend, but Tehran-based Shi'ite leader Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim, who runs the powerful Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, may decide not to grace a U.S.-run conclave if it offends his Iranian backers.
Along with Chalabi, another key exile could be a seasoned Iraqi minister from pre-Saddam days, Adnan al-Pachachi, 80. Long based in London but much admired in Arab circles, he is expected to send three representatives. Another potential player is the Iraqi Republican Group, an organization of anti-Saddam political and military leaders who say they organized covertly during Saddam's rule and claim a part in his downfall.
Chalabi may be the most controversial of them all. A British official told TIME that President George W. Bush had privately promised British Prime Minister Tony Blair weeks ago that Chalabi "would not be parachuted in to run Iraq."
But there he was, and the Pentagon was clearly aching to promote him. The White House seemed to recognize that the more the U.S. tried to boost Chalabi, the greater the chance he would be rejected as an American stooge. All week long the U.S. found itself fighting the public perception that it intended to dictate Iraq's new political makeup.
Eventually the Administration started hitting the right notes. As Wolfowitz put it earlier, "The goal is not to have any one particular group or leader to be the favored choice of the Americans. That is for the Iraqis to decide."
The image of hands-off supervision would be easier to sustain if not for the emergence of an exile so favored by the Pentagon. Chalabi has been preparing for this moment almost from the day his wealthy, politically prominent family was forced to flee after Iraq's monarchy fell in 1958.
An elegant scholar with a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago, he helped found the umbrella opposition I.N.C. in 1992, and his political savvy earned him pre-eminence in anti-Saddam exile circles. To his passionate supporters, who include Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he's a selfless democrat steeped in Western ways who could guide Iraq out of decades of repression.
But his confidence and aristocratic manner can come across as arrogance, especially when he's out cultivating popular support. As he stood in Nasiriyah last week listening to farmers and teachers detailing their complaints and needs, his gaze would wander over their shoulders.
To detractors, especially in the State Department and the CIA, he's an opportunist, a shameless self-promoter and an embezzler. He opened a bank in Jordan that grew into the country's second largest, then was expropriated by the Jordanian government in the late '80s amid charges of fraud. Chalabi was convicted in absentia by a Jordanian military court after friends, said to include Jordan's then Crown Prince Hassan, sped him out of the country. Chalabi has always maintained his innocence.
Many State Department officials say Chalabi has been good at lobbying Congress for money but poor at accounting for his spending. These officials also argue that he has no political constituency in Iraq. When Chalabi made public appearances around Nasiriyah last week, he was heavily guarded by U.S. special forces.
Back in Washington, the Pentagon has been grooming some useful backup for Chalabi. Two subway stops from downtown, upstairs from a McDonald's, are the offices of the seven-week-old Iraq Reconstruction and Development Council.
A pet project of Wolfowitz's, the organization consists of a group of exiled Iraqi technocrats sympathetic to Chalabi who have been feverishly planning how to restart everything from irrigation to trash collection to oil production as soon as the fighting stops. When they get the word from Garner, they will deploy as liaisons between his temporary American ministers and those Iraqis deemed salvageable from Saddam's sprawling bureaucracy.
Over a period of three to six months, the U.S. bosses will hand over their ministries to the I.I.A. as they show their ability to work on their own. That means Chalabi supporters will hold key oversight positions in much of Iraq's government, at least until elections can be held. None of this guarantees that Chalabi will emerge at the top.
Several U.S. officials say they hope to institute a rule that those who serve on the I.I.A. cannot run for office in the first elections. In the end, the Defense Department, according to a senior aide to Rumsfeld, is more interested in leaving Iraq quickly than in picking its future leaders.
"There will be people with credible claims to be able to lead various parts of the country," he says, "and our view is, Great, let them sort that out." Sorting out Iraq's fractious polity will challenge the skills of anyone, let alone a man exiled for 45 years.
--Reported by Brian Bennett/Nasiriyah, Massimo Calabresi and Mark Thompson/Washington, Meenakshi Ganguly/Kuwait City and J.F.O. McAllister/London |
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Marine's Wife
PO3
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 267
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 10:49 am Post subject: subject |
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mikest, I have over 4000 ( I thought it was less) 6 hour video tapes. Clinton/Gore "allowed,or "sold" the Chinese our top secrets. Figure it out for yourself.The top contributors to the Clinton/Gore campaign in 1992 were Chinese agents.
I wrote letters of my concern to several editors. Only one was interested enough to print it. You may not be concerned about the Clinton crimes, but most of us are. It may be you,or your family the next time,and there WILL be a next time, Will you care then???
I noticed you couldn't resist the nasty little comment about Fox. That is the only reliable source we have. ABC,CBS,NBC, CNN, MSNBC,CNBC, The Times and ALL the big dailys have been covering the Liberals behind for years.
We are in a Global War. Unlike anything we've ever seen before. Blaming President Bush is a stupid thing for anyone to do. He is the ONLY President we've had since Harry Truman with enough guts to defend us,and stick to what he believes. He can't be bought and sold any more than President Truman could. |
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