Salon: When puppets pull the strings

Consider this a companion piece to Krugman's of today. They both talk about how Chalabi -- and his faithful supporters at the Pentagon (Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz) and of course Dick Cheney -- have screwed up royally again. Chalabi is STILL leading them around by the nose.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/04/13/chalabi/index.html

Ahmed Chalabi, the neocons' choice to run Iraq, appears to have been responsible for the disastrous decision to move against Muqtada al-Sadr.

Why did they do it? It seemed a safe bet to the civilian echelon policymakers at the Department of Defense when they approved Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer's fateful decision to close down the newspaper of Muqtada al-Sadr and to arrest an aide to the young firebrand Shiite cleric. Even after Shiite Iraq had erupted into fury over the moves on Saturday, April 3, top-level Pentagon policymakers were privately still convinced it was all a storm in a teacup.

...

Just as Bremer will not make the slightest move without the approval of his Pentagon bosses, the Defense Department policymakers continue to rely on Chalabi alone for their political assessments on Iraq. In private conversation, as in public, they remain amazingly enthusiastic about Chalabi's supposed political skills, and even genius, and proclaim repeatedly that he is the only man with the brilliance to hold Iraq together and make it work. Give Chalabi a free hand after June 30 and give him all the U.S. firepower he wants to crush his foes -- this is their master plan; there is no other.

:scared:. Very, very :scared:

"Give Chalabi a free hand after June 30 and give him all the U.S. firepower he wants to crush his foes -- this is their master plan; there is no other."

Isn't that exactly what Hussein was accused of doing? Except, he was no longer our puppet. I guess they think Chalabi is the new puppet, but I think he's playing these people as suckers. Once a con man, always a con man.

I give Chalabi 6 months and he's out of there....that should be enough time to embezzle what reconstruction funds remain.