How Ahmed Chalabi Conned the Neocons (http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news1/salon8.html)

Impressive article, and actually the first I found elaborating the relationship between Chalabi and the neocons.

It is a sad tale of people who went out, with a great plan, to conquer and reshape a region they knew little about, to fulfill their dream: securing Israel strategically - and fell for a grifter. ... Why did the neocons put such enormous faith in Ahmed Chalabi, an exile with a shady past and no standing with Iraqis? One word: Israel. They saw the invasion of Iraq as the precondition for a reorganization of the Middle East that would solve Israel's strategic problems, without the need for an accommodation with either the Palestinians or the existing Arab states. Chalabi assured them that the Iraqi democracy he would build would develop diplomatic and trade ties with Israel, and eschew Arab nationalism.
(...)
Had the neocons not been deluded by gross ignorance of the Arab world and blinded by wishful thinking, they would have realized that the chances that Chalabi or any other Iraqi leader could deliver on such promises were always remote. In fact, they need have looked no further than the Israeli media: A long piece in Israel's Jerusalem Report magazine published nine days before the war began last year featured Israelis who dismissed Chalabi's promises about Israel as a political ploy, "a means by which to appeal to the Jewish lobby and, in turn, the administration."
(...)
Chalabi appears to have recognized that the neocons, while ruthless, realistic and effective in bureaucratic politics, were remarkably ignorant about the situation in Iraq, and willing to buy a fantasy of how the country's politics worked. So he sold it to them ...As usual for people falling for elaborate fraud schemes, some of the neo-cons wake up appalled, while the others keep locked in their delusion and illusion, willing to throw more money after what they have lost already.

That is particularly bitter, considering their former arrogance and hubris towards dissenters in state, CIA and defense department - who dissented was steamrolled.
And sadly, most of the people who came under the steamroller, happend to be right. The neo-cons can expect little mercy from those they bossed around, overrode and humiliated. Good riddance.

[ May 06, 2004, 04:49: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

After watching the news these past few days, I think it's quite interesting how the Americans are blaming all the problems on Chalabi. I'm sure he gave the intelligence sevices a lot of bogus info, but why did they believe him in the first place? Was it just because he was saying what they needed to hear? Regardless, his true colours are showing now, and they aren't the ones the Americans wanted.

A great editorial on the subject, IMO: Bay of Goats (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/opinion/23DOWD.html)

So let me get this straight:

We ransacked the house of the con man whom we paid millions to feed us fake intelligence on W.M.D. that would make the case for ransacking the country that the con man assured us would be a cinch to take over because he wanted to run it.

And now we're shocked, shocked and awed to discover that a crook is a crook and we have nobody to turn over Iraq to, and the Jordanian embezzler-turned-American puppet-turned-accused Iranian spy is trying to foment even more anger against us and the U.N. officials we've crawled back to for help, anger that may lead to civil war.

The party line that Paul Bremer was notified about the raid on Ahmad Chalabi's house after the fact is absurd. The Iraqi police, who can't seem to do anything without us, were just proxies. We were going after the very guy who persuaded us to go after Saddam, the con man the naïve neo-cons cast as de Gaulle; the swindler who sold himself to Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz as Spartacus.

I really do think that casting Cheney, Wolfie & Crew as Chalabi's useful idiots doesn't do them justice.

While Chalabi was a crook he was the right man and came just at the right time for the neo-cons dream of changing the middle east. Their relationship among each other was symbiotic. Reshaping the middle east for the neo-cons - involve the US in a war in Iraq and gaining power there for Chalabi. In the end it was Cheney who overrode Bush and sent Chalabi to Baghdad. Chalabi was as much a tool for the neo-cons as they were one for him.

What I find so striking when watching the actual US discussion is that everyone talks about the phony reasons: WMD/ Liberation/ Democracy in Iraq while leaving out what drove Wolfie and Cheney - making the Middle East safe for Israel.
Seemingly it is unspeakable in Washington that the US decisionmakers went to war against arabs to help Israel.

The neo-cons sure knew a sh*t about the Middle East and their grandiose schemes were dominated by wishful thinking and delusion - but don't think they had no plan, it may have been an unrealistic plan, but nevertheless a plan.
Chalabi provided the phony bad news they needed for their doomsday scenario necessiating war against Iraq. Attacking Iraq however was not the goal in itself, but the start to their grander plan to reshape the Middle East - for mutual US and Israeli advantage.

Without Chalabis lies-on-demand the neo-cons wouldn't have been able to provide the alarmist intel they stovepiped to the pres, bypassing the professional intelligence community. Besides, while Chalabi can be blamed for many things, the administrative blundering is a 100% neo-con achievement.

What you see here is the grim realist counter-offensive after the devastating neo-con onslaught - by whacking Chalabi the realists whack those who granted him the open doors and the influence he got in Washington: Cheney, Wolfie et Cie.

They sure won't go without a fierce infight, and atm it seems in full swing, and that is truly a sight to behold: The realists in State, uniformed military and the professional spooks vs. the chickenhawks.

This line of questioning really caught my attention on MtP earlier this morning:


MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you how some of the papers here have reported this latest incident. The New York Times: "Mr. Chalabi, regarded by many Iraqis as an American stooge, seemed to relish his new role as a martyr ... moving away from the Americans as he has moved closer to the country's Shiite majority."

The Christian Science Monitor said there is rumors all over Baghdad that said this was all part of a constructed charade by you and American officials in order for you to position yourself as independent of America so that you can seek to obtain power in Iraq.

This guy is a known crook long before he began dealing with members of the present goverment of USA. I think that what he provided to these people was a justification for invading Iraq (which they wanted so bad) and a nice scapegoat in the scenario where things would not go as they hoped for. The latter happened and now he will be able to play the role of the big time deceiver of the US goverment. Something way too lame, because i can't believe that the secret agencies of USA (CIA and so on) did not have the possibility to validate the information being offered to them by Chalabi.
I think it is about the same thing that happened for Yugoslavia some people wanted to be deceived and they were. They just as guilty as Chalabi or any Chalabi for that matter.

It is a wonderful irony that those who went out and set up an intelligence operation of their own (the OSP) because the CIA was too cautious and wouldn't echo their preferred alarmist views as a result of all their professional scepticsm, fell for disinformation as a result of not only lack of professionalism, but contempt for professionalism.

In the 1980s Perlie, just like his pal Wolfie, dwelled in the pentagon dungeons reading top secret intel reports, mainly on russia - but that didn't give them real practical expertise in analysis and intelligence operations, it just felt spookish, as spookish it can feel for an academic desk warrior.

The first early neo-con experiment to apply gut feeling in intel was the Plan B assessment of russian ambitions and strength based on the arcane "soviet mindset" (you could say, stereotypes) rather than facts and intel gathered and the results can be fairly summed up as having been as much far off mark than the OSP intel on Iraq.
Exaggeration based on paranoid threat assessments - the evil Ivan must hide nukes from us - isn't he evil? - so let's make a WORST case estimate. It resulted in a hugely expensive US effort to counter a nonexistent soviet (iraqi?) threat. Sounds familiar?
And then, there are the grand plans to reshape the middle east - one might think Saddam was doomed, WMD or not, he was in the way of something grander ... A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/archive/1990s/instituteforadvancedstrategicandpoliticalstudies.h tm) (check PS & PPS)

Take Wolfie - he just *felt* Saddam was linked with 911, absence of any evidence supporting his thesis and overwhelming evidence to the contrary nonwitstanding - he relied on, quote, "gut feeling (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EF04Ak01.html)". It is hard to overestimate the impact of that menthality. It is a mix of delusion and hubris, like: "I read top secret stuff for 20 years, that means I'm an expert" - maybe, but not on intel *gathering*, but nevermind that ...

Now wether or not Chalabi was an iranian spy, or maybe he just didn't keep a tight ship and Iran's intel had infested his INC (who could blame them, quite a smart move), the neo-cons have thoroughly demonstrated what happens to dilettants in the intel world - they will be played for suckers.

In the end Gen. Odom made a good point when he stressed that the invasion of Iraq served not so much served a US national interest but a premier Iranian national interest - to see the butcher of Baghdad, who has killed some 500.000 or so Iranians in his US sponsored war, fall, and to see Iraq, the only other serious regional military power crippled and removed from the scene as a threat for the next two decades.
Chaos in Iraq likely is not so much a concern for them - they are experienced in that field since their involvement in Lebanon, that is, unlike the US they have experience in that field and they are familiar with the culture - it is theirs.

That, of course, in fact not so much suggests an Iranian interest in the US invasion, Iran would be most happy to see the US pack and go, or, have never gone there, but the way it came was the second best variant for them and could explain the allegations against Chalabi:
With the US bound in Iraq frantically scratching together what troops they've left, Iran doesn't have to fear a US intervention. And the, ahem, possibility of a Shia uprising in the south in reaction on, say a US or Israeli raid on the Busheer reactor site, should cool down the fireheads (Cheney/ Ledeen/ Bolton) who want to "defeat evil" in Iran by invading asap, or undermining the gvt there. What do you think would Iran do to the US in case they try to undermine their state? Sit idle and watch? Hardly.

In this context, right or wrong, it's an interesting story, and as I said, a sight to behold.


PS: The author was old jolly boy Richard Perle; Mr. Wurmser, is now a top aidee of Darth Cheney; Douglas Feith is in the Pentagon and was the boss of the OSP, the neo-con's private Ersatz-CIA ...

PPS: ... and the piece "A clean break" from 1996 sheds an intersting light on the neo-con plans for how to secure Israel, well and long before 911: As a senior Iraqi opposition leader (read: Chalabi) said recently: "Israel must rejuvenate and revitalize its moral and intellectual leadership. It is an important — if not the most important--element in the history of the Middle East." Israel — proud, wealthy, solid, and strong — would be the basis of a truly new and peaceful Middle East.For the neo-cons it was right from the start about much more than countering 911 or toppling Saddam. It was the idea that securing Israel in a Siegfrieden would solve the Middle East problems, including terror - ignoring the fact that terror and terror are two pairs of shoes and that Bin Laden had completely different reasons and interests as Hamas or the PLO, but nevermind. The plan is for ideologues only, and they don't listen to the rest of America, much less the world, anyway.
Iraq only was the first step - and intended was (and likely still is) to 'do' Syria, Lebanon and Iran as well - and that's why the neo-cons will continue to point fingers in these directions from time to time to keep these enemies warm. And of course, they have little ambitious Quislings from these countries in Washington waiting for their great day, preferrably sponsored by US taxpayers.
The neo-cons grand plans have been mugged by harsh reality in Iraq, or failed, but that cn't touch them - you can count on Cheney, Wolfie & Perle to stick with their grand plans - for them they are just delayed - maybe they're more lucky next time, at the next opportunity. And if that doesn't work, just whack'em. They are acting compulsive. It is up to America to put these mad dogs of war on the leash again.

[ May 24, 2004, 11:25: Message edited by: Ragusa ]