MTP: an observation... and a question

One of the interesting statements was made by Mr. Safire, when he said regarding the Iraq situation, "there are three warring factions here, and I'm not referring to the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shi'ites -- I'm referring to DOD, State and the CIA". This was received with knowing smiles by the assembled Washington insiders -- and is undoubtedly a true statement.

So that brought me back to the segment with Chalabi... what's the real story behind his claim that "This is all due to Mr. Tenet"??? And who the h*** is this Chalabi character anyway, to publicly challenge the head of the US CIA on a forum like MTP? I mean, Mr. Chalabi is a foreign agent who has been paid lots of money by us, whose so-called "intelligence" reports were used as an excuse to wage this illegal war, and whose so-called "intelligence" reports have been shown to be false. So why do we, the world's great superpower, give this person a national news forum on which to trash our premier intelligence agency? And why does he, whose residence was just raided, feel safe in doing so?

I think Safire was onto something.

... neo-cons love him because he tells them what they want to hear, and they hate the CIA just as much as Chalabi does.

They wanted to hand over Iraq to Chalabi right from the start, but State and the CIA probably put the kibosh on that.

The simplest solution to the problem of Chalabi would be to hand him over to the Jordanians--which the current White House will not do, since the Perles, Wolfowitzes, Feiths and Boltons would have simultaneous strokes on the White House lawn at rush hour.

This guy gets air time because of the people in Washington he's been stroking for years--who better to run Iraq than a corrupt bank embezzler?--he's a guy near and dear to the neo-cons' collective heart, such as it is (think Cheney and all those jolts keeping it going).

that State initiated the cut-off of his monthly "allowance" ($340,000), and that CIA was no doubt involved in the raid; further, he knows that neither State nor CIA trusted/trust him - ever; only the PNACers at DOD swallowed this rotten, red herring ... so, he continues his pitch, same victim song, just different page.

as though he had the right to use our Congress to determine anything.

He is a tool of the civilian leadership of DOD (or vice versa) and they all want to blame Tenent.

But both Rummy and Tenent still have their jobs. Is that because Bush is afraid Tenent has the goods on him? Because there is no one to replace Rummy? (How far down in the civilian chain at DOD do you have to go to find a sane person?)

It really seems to me that Bush could get out of this by firing one, or both of them, saying they made mistakes and he is appointing a new team to fix them. Americans could forgive him...at least enough to re-elect him.

"as though he had the right to use our Congress to determine anything".

That is exactly my point. He is a civilian tool. Is he a U.S. citizen? A head of state? The head of some agency? A Cabinet minister or diplomat of some country, anywhere? No. So what is his standing to challenge the head of our CIA, and to propose Congressional hearings? None. And no one seems to notice how ludicrous it is, how we allow our institutions to be dragged down into a direct debate with an international con man/felon and known liar.

Of course, he is mouthing what the neocons want him to mouth. But if they want to challenge Tenet, it's up to them -- not up to this wannabe US puppet "leader" of Iraq.

Because Mr. Chalabi could not persuade the CIA his intel was credible. Now he blames the CIA for his present situation...

only the "something" has been going on for three and a half years.

There's a war going on inside the beltway between State, CIA, and Defense - Chalabi is part of the Defense faction.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/23/wirq223.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/05/23/ixnewstop.html