Chalabi Passed U.S. Intelligence to Iran - CBS

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=2&u=/nm/20040520/ts_nm/iraq_chalabi_report_dc

So is this what the Chalabi raid was all about? Seems like a most serious allegation.

Excerpt:

Ahmad Chalabi, Washington's former top Iraqi ally whose house in Baghdad was raided by U.S. troops on Thursday, passed sensitive U.S. intelligence to Iran that could "get Americans killed," CBS Evening News said.

"Senior U.S. officials told us today that they have evidence Chalabi has been passing highly classified U.S. intelligence to Iran," the report said on Thursday.

"The evidence shows that Chalabi personally gave Iranian intelligence officers information so sensitive that if revealed it could ... 'get Americans killed.' The evidence is said to be 'rock solid."'

There was no independent confirmation of the report.

Can no one be trusted?
</sarcasm>

don't believe a f**king word this dick has to say--so what's the threat to national security?

But really, sarcasm aside, why in the hell does this f**k have access to US national secrets?

Never mind, I forgot for a moment that the adults were back in charge of the White House.

Juan Cole's been all over this for the past month.

http://www.juancole.com

He's better informed about the Iraq situation than anyone else on the internet. :thumbsup:

Chalibi served his purpose. He fed the Office of Special Plans what they needed to invade Iraq. US tax dollars in the millions were handed to him. He is done.

... just now. He re-ran his contentious interview with Rumsfeld, where Rummy insists that Chalabi is not now, and has never been, an "employee" of the US or CPA. He actually scolds Chris for even making the suggestion.

Then Chris reminds his viewers that Chalabi has received about $27.5 million from US taxpayers, in total.

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 (news - web sites) or other U.S. agencies, a congressional source told Reuters.

~snip~
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=1&u=/nm...

Which is how you tell an employee, of course.

Not in the Bush employee benefits era.

:eyes:

provided the "intelligence" upon which we went to war, and lost hundreds of American lives. It turned out to be false, but the * administration bought it hook, line, and sinker. This is another example of their terrible judgment in all things, foreign and domestic. What a bunch of losers! By the way, Kerry or someone should be calling them on it!

neo-cons got CONNED. Only bad thing is that we all suffer for their incompetance.

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 5:58 p.m. ET May 20, 2004
May 20 - The raid came as a shock to many: U.S. soldiers breaking into the home and offices of Ahmad Chalabi, the exile whom Pentagon hawks once saw as Iraq’s future leader. Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress promptly put its spin machine into overdrive. This was all about politics, the INC said—the souring of Chalabi’s reputation in Washington and his resistance to a United Nations-led plan for Iraqi sovereignty that would cut out the Iraq Governing Council, of which Chalabi is a member. "It's a provocative operation, designed to force Dr. Chalabi to change his political stance," fumed Chalabi aide Qaisar Wotwot.


In fact, sources close to the investigation tell NEWSWEEK that Thursday’s raid stems from a long-running probe by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq into financial corruption and criminal charges linked to the INC and its alleged efforts to profit illegally from Iraq’s reconstruction. Among the documents police were searching for relate to charges that INC officials profited from the introduction of a new currency. According to an official with the Coalition Provisional Authority, an INC-affiliated company was placed in charge of destroying the old currency, but “a lot of money was coming out again into circulation instead of being burned. Some of it had signs of partial burning.” The currency handover was supposed to be a one-to-one exchange, he said, “but we got a lot less in old money then we gave out.”

Among the felony counts already filed are theft of government property, theft of government money, misrepresentation and abuse of power, he said. Some of the other charges are connected to the INC’s seizure of government-owned homes and cars, especially through the group’s effective control of the Ministry of Finance, the CPA official said.

The CCCI is also investigating whether INC officials, including Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Habib, misused the Baath Party files they seized upon being helped into Iraq early by the U.S. military. Chalabi ultimately became head of the De-Baathification Committee, and U.S. officials believe that some Iraqis have been threatened with blackmail by being identified as Baath Party members if they declined to do the INC’s bidding, the CPA official said. “Just recently we learned of a situation where a senior official in the Ministry of Science and Technology refused to sign off on a contract brought in by the INC. He felt it was overpriced or that there was something else wrong with it. Because he refused, the minister and the De-Baathification Committee included his name on the list members, and they sent a letter saying you’re a Baathist and you’ll be eliminated.” The official also said about 1 billion dinars allocated for de-Baathification has mysteriously disappeared.

~snip~


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5024660/site/newsweek/

Chalabi has lost his usefulness to the BFEE...he's going to go down and HARD. Wonder if the Jordanian's will get to have a trial now?

If it weren't so damn serious. The twists and turns of this whole debacle are almost unbelievable.

Get off that palm tree.

When do we get to blame George for this new catastrophe?

Maybe because the next time someone in the Bush administration makes a truthful statement about Iraq, it will be the first time someone in the Bush administration makes a truthful statement about Iraq.

However, there obviously is a campaign against Chalabi. Perhaps he is not crooked and corrupt enough for Bush.

FIRE THE LIAR

What's more damaging...the picture of Kerry sitting a few rows behind Jane Fonda or Chalabi siting 1 row behind Pickles at the SOTU?

from the SOTU with Pickles? That should be a lot of fun to look at now that the world knows Chalabi is a crook.

DU always knew it. We know a crook from a mile away.

Man overboard! Time to throw someone over the side.

Oh!!!! Let's hope the rest of the neocon cabal follow!!!!

:bounce:

Need any more proof that Bush is corrupt and negligent as hell. This administration is a liability.

didn't Clinton fund this putz too? Info anyone?

If it is, it's really lame. Clinton isn't President anymore.

:eyes:

How even the Freepers can tolerate the blithering idiots in the administration is a mystery of serious inscrutability.

or is it Fieth? :shrug:

Chalabi is a known scumbag from way back, so the BFEE shouldn't have even put him there in the first place.

Then they pass him top secret intel?? He's been feeding them bad info for what, 2 years? And they trust him with top secret clearance? Just when you thought a war couldn't be run any more poorly...

Then Chalabi, being the dumbass that he is, gets caught stabbing his pimp in the back!

And we, rather than arrange a car bomb or plane crash, or at least Parkinson's Disease, instead conduct a public raid on our MAIN MAN in Iraq. This is the guy that pulled down the statue of Saddam! This must make the Iraqi's feel all warm and fuzzy. Especially since John "Death Squad" Negroponte is in the 'hood.

The "insurgents" will feel even more justified in their resistance to our presence. And those Iraqis that welcome us will now have a fair amount of doubt about what we have said and done up 'til now. And about our ability to do whatever it is that needs to be done right. And about where their oil money is. And what "highly classified" intel is now in the hands of their not-so-close friends the Iranians. And whether the US can (or will) do anything about it.

excerpt

11. Despite this, the Clinton Administration made the CIA fund a 1996 foray by the INC and other ant-Saddam groups into Northern Iraq which ended in a fiasco. Chalabi's forecasts that the Iraqi troops deployed in Northern Iraq would desert en masse and join the INC proved wrong. Saddam managed to win over the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which made a separate peace with him Differences between the INC and the Iraqi National Accord, a group of CIA-backed former Iraqi Army officers, led to their killing each other. Gen. Anthony Zinni, who was the Commanding Officer of the US Central Command, under Clinton, used to describe this as the Iraqi Bay of Pigs and sarcastically refer to Chalabi as " that silk-suited, Rolex-wearing guy from London."

more on chalabi the human maggot right here
http://www.saag.org/papers7/paper659.html

<snickering at your screen name>

You know, Zinni really seems like one of the good guys in this whole situation, to me.

Tonight on "Hardball," Richard Holbrooke made a side comment about Chalabi, something like, "Yes, and he dresses quite well, doesn't he?"

It's almost like code... it's starting to get easier to figure out who I admire these days. :-)

I love it when they eat their own.

I've heard it speculated that he wants to at least attempt to build up some popular support in Iraq. He sees which way the wind is blowing...

Could the neocons be actually staging this all..in one last desparate attempt to get Chalabi in as head of the new government?

rumguy is paying attention! ;)

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/neocon_lets_cat_out_of_bag.php

Neocon Lets Cat Out of Bag
Robert Dreyfuss

May 19, 2004

<snip>Michael Rubin—a young staffer at the American Enterprise Institute who’s just left the Pentagon, where he played a small role as a neocon cog in the Office of Special Plans war machine—let a herd of cats out of the bag about his favorite Iraqi phony, Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress.</snip>

"By telegraphing that he is not the favorite son of America, the administration will bolster him, showing he is his own man."

<snip>In other words, it’s all a big con game. The still-neocon-dominated Pentagon—which this week stopped funding Chalabi’s INC —is playing its last card, hoping that it can boost Chalabi’s sagging fortunes by pretending to sever ties with him. That, the neocons hope, will allow Chalabi to strengthen his ties to Sistani, the king-making mullah who, they hope, holds Iraq’s fate in his wrinkled hands.</snip>

A poster over at Yahoo had an interesting theory, which is no more unbelievable than most things the bush Administration has cooked up. The gist of it is that we raided Chalibi so that it would look as if he is no longer in our camp. Chalibi gains the trust of the Iraqis and magically becomes their beloved leader, while actually still in bed with the Whitehouse.

I did notice his reference and thanks to " President Bush" in his speech today.

He has not stopped being a crook just because his house was raided.

the designated junta scapegoat. Nobody here thinks Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolf-the-wuss are gonna take the fall, do they?

Here is the boy king loudly and publicly declaring the new Iraqi government, the one that doesn't seem to be happening...Chalabi is smiling smarmily behind Pickles.

What's worse....Kerry and fonda (5 rows away and don't even know eachother) or this bad boy!

my bad...it's Dr. Adnan Pachachi, President of the Iraqi Governing Council, during President Bush's State of the Union Address at the U.S. Capitol Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2004...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/images/20040120-7_d012004-2-515h.html

is Pachachi. He has his hands spread apart, and everyone is looking at him. Chalabi is directly above Pickles.

This should be broadcast high and low. * knows how to pick em, uh? And we've been yelling about this piece of scum for months. Jordan would like a crack at him.

that I posted on how Chalabi was being mentioned as being included in a general amnesty!! Jordanian ministers were livid!

TIA and n/t

... and policy speech backdrops. I'm sure there's an "overzealous staffer" working on that right this minute.

I wonder what kind of secrets were given to Iran? How on earth are they going to spin this one?

Just on MS-NBC..... .2% of Iraqis want Chalabi to be their leader vs. 3.3% preferring Hussein. What an insult to foist this embezzling fraud-artist on the Iraqi people as the best hope for their "democracy". This is yet more proof positive that this administration is beyond incompetent in affairs of war or state.

BTW, Matthews was steaming on Hardball tonight concerning the Chalabi story developing....his guest, Richard Holbrooke was the reasoned ex-Clinton Ambassador (and current Kerry advisor) giving astute comments and nice cuts at this administration. Do I miss the reasoned intelligence that men like Holbrooke brought to our foreign policy. Bush demands everyone think like a Christian RW extremist. No wonder our country is in deep shit.

I so look forward to the day when reasoned, thoughtful, worldly men and women inhabit the State Department again.

Matthews was hard on the Administration's ties to Chalabi... I loved that he re-ran the Rumsfeld interview, where Rummy denies that Chalabi is an "employee."

INTELLIGENCE? Anything he had access to must have been given to him when he was their head honcho. I am so fed up of these fucking lying bastards!

Hey, isn't Lesley Stahl the one Bush #41 referred to as a c*** back in the day? Anyone else remember that?

And, it looks like there's another "high-level investigation" underway. How many does that make, now? Pretty soon, they're going to have to initiate a "special needs draft" for "high level investigators."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/20/iraq/main618637.shtml

Excerpt:

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.

this guy is dirty as they come, the whole world knew he was a con man except rummy, cheney, wolfie and feith.

what great work Rummy/the Pentagon is doing. WE all owe him a debt of gratitude. With leadership like this :+ what more can we say?

FOUR MORE YEARS!:puke:

We can feel so secure with a commander in chief who has good judgment, can't we?

I'm more than a little biased, but we need someone who can slice and dice the instigators of this war for the VP slot. Somebody who has excellent foreign policy credentials...

No, no, no, this is all wrong. When the USG has "rock solid" evidence that you're passing intel to a hostile power, your ass is thrown in jail and you're facing execution. Aldrich Ames, Hansen.... did the powers that be call up CBS Evening News first? This is so f***** on so many levels.

Even worse--per Doubles' post--he's not even a US citizen?? I didn't know that. So yeah, how in the world did he get his hands on classifed info like that?

WHERE IS OUR GODDAMN CONGRESS, WHY AREN'T THEY UP IN ARMS?

and there won't be a dry eye in the house. Personally, I vote that we smear him up with barbecue sauce and throw him to the lions.

He knows way too much, and he's snake enough to try to save himself by turning on his former patrons. It's actually very surprising that he's not already dead.

Imagine if it was Clinton.

Ha!

Watching these criminals crumble is a confusing mix of oft times conflicting emotions. Glee at their going down, fear about what their capable of when put in their precarious position and despondence over what they've done to this country...

Must the world collapse before real news gets out. CNN is running Survivor as "culture" for Christ frickin sakes. I feel like our fight is a few years too late. I think we need to Emril it a bit.

From the wit of Josh Marshall, on his Talking Points Memo site today.

That's about the most perfect analogy I can think of... brava, Josh!

:D

What kind of highly classified information are they talking about. Has bushie been showing top secret documents to everyone again? :shrug:

.
.
.

Gee

I've never heard that before . .

:eyes:

Hold your nose, if you must; they source the story to CBS later in the piece...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120535,00.html

Excerpt:

Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi (search), once a darling of the American government, may have passed classified U.S. information to Iran, Fox News has confirmed.

U.S. troops and Iraqi police on Thursday suddenly surrounded and raided Chalabi's house — and police also searched offices of his organization, the Iraqi National Congress.

CIA sources told Fox News there are reports that the INC passed information to Iran, but as far as what type of information, the sources said that isn't known for sure.

Defense officials also told Fox News there was speculation that INC members allegedly shared information with Iran (search) and misused funds and property belonging to the Iraqi Governing Council.

Preemptive strike, from someone who knew he was in line to be screwed.

So he played the complete soverignity card, and flipped on his handlers.

They were warned about him, but didn't care because he was telling them what they wanted to hear.

Journey to a liberated Iraq
Tamara Chalabi
6 - 2 - 2003
After a week of intensive discussions with Iranian officials, delegates of the Iraqi National Congress crossed the mountains into northern Iraq. In a vivid report from the political and military frontline, the daughter of the INC leader reports on the Tehran meetings and registers mounting anticipation in the liberated zone that Iraq’s long nightmare is nearing its end.

<snip>
US occupation – the wrong option

Among the delegation arriving in Tehran are Ahmad Chalabi, Mudhar Shawkat, Kanan Makiya, Goran Talabani and Jawad al-Haeri. Kurds, Sunni and Shi’a, they represent Iraq’s diverse population. Several in this group have spent decades fighting for the world’s attention; all are fervently committed to rid Iraq of its totalitarian incarceration and establish a democratic state. The main purpose of the trip is to discuss the liberation of Iraq and the mechanisms of a post-Saddam transitional government with both Iraqi Islamists and the Iranian authorities.

<snip>
The sense in the delegation is that a US-led war against the Iraqi regime is imminent. The possibility of a US military occupation is a real one, according to the various declarations made in Washington. This is a central point of our discussion with the highest Iranian authorities, those responsible for the country’s ‘Iraq file’.

The delegation is opposed to an American occupation. The post-1945 German or Japanese model would have serious repercussions for Iraq and the region. Moreover, the birth of a democratic Iraq cannot be dependent solely on US troops invading and occupying the country. While US forces would initially be regarded as liberators, a lengthy stay would trigger dramatic opposition from Iraqis.

In the latter event, the energies of Iraqi people would be focused on affirming their Iraqi nationalism in the face of a foreign occupier, reminiscent of the 1920 revolt against the British. The painful memory of Saddam would be swiftly put aside. Extended US military rule would also unleash religious extremism in Iraq. After all, one significant feature of Ba’athist rule has been the suppression of other forms of political expression. The ideological currents in circulation in the area could also find fertile ground in Iraq, especially if they are homegrown. The rise of nationalism, on a local and regional level, would hijack whatever positive momentum has been set in motion, and fuel the recruiters of religious terrorism.

Iran in support of ‘regime change’ in Baghdad
<more>
http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article.jsp?id=2&debateId=73&articleId=963

The ex-Jordain thief was a con man. It was only a matter of time before one con man was going to try to screw the other. That's the life of a hustler.

:)

than US intelligence! What a hoot!

:dem:

a CIA agent?

Does this make Ahmad part of the 'axis of evil'?