Rumors have been flying since the raid on Ahmad Chalabi's home a few weeks ago--the most persistent of which is the allegation that Chalabi was feeding sensitive intel to Iran. As if the degree to which the WMD intel he fed us was bogus was not enough reason to cut ties and wash our hands of him, this at least would seem to be a reasonable rationale for cutting off his $300k+ per month allowance and sending him to his room.
Now via War and Piece, Atrios, and about a dozen other places, we have what appears to be confirmation: Chalabi did, apparently, pass intel to the Iranians, the precise nature of which US intelligence had requested the various news organizations not disclose due to its sensitivity.
The cat's out of the bag now, though--and boy, is he pissed.
Laura at War and Piece seems to have some inside sources that could be valuable for getting a jump on this story. And Josh Marshall has some good analysis and informed speculation.
So far, there's been near-total silence from the sane right, the hawkish left, and notable neocons about Chalabi--although where the latter is concerned, there are a few paragraphs of interesting musings which suggest that the Chalabi-Iran allegations are a non-story designed by American intelligence agencies to discredit Chalabi.
Plausible, but Darling's defense of Chalabi is pretty high in "doth protest too much" and carries more than a faint undercurrent of denial. This is understandable if true; hawks and neo-conservatives who put their eggs in the INC basket are facing one of two highly unpalatable scenarios: either this is an elaborate inter-agency plot to discredit their white knight of Iraqi democracy, or he really is as big of a crook as we've been telling them, and their naive faith in Chalabi is about to bite them in the ass.
If I were them, I'd be holding out for option #1 too.
Stay tuned for more. I have a feeling this story's about to take off in a hurry.
Posted by Catsy at 08:08 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)...And considering that I threw Laura's blog link into Dan's latest analysis. No, we've got our eyes open over at Winds. The situation is developing, and even Kevin "Calpundit" Drum is urging caution. We'll see.
As for Chalabi, I think you're overstating his importance. I know I personally supported backing the INC and creation of a "Free Iraqi" corps prior to OIF. This isn't because I believe the INC was perfect or the best hope for Iraqi democracy, but because it was the only organization with any cohesion in that respect and I believed (and still do) that more Iraqi participation than we had would have been helpful.
Truth is, I've never really known what to make of Chalabi - too many of his critics have seemed to have questionable allegiances of their own, and INC members had assassinations attempted by Saddam, but on the other hand corruption was a possibility.
Still, in the end everything that went down happens with or without Chalabi. There were other key democrats (Kanan Makiya, anyone), and other sources. As for the future of Iraq, once Iraq was free the Iraqis would come to their own conclusions and make their own choices. Exiles often don't do fantastically well in those scenarios, DeGaulle being something of an exceptional case (emphasis definitely on "case").
If it's an interagency dust-up, this concerns me for reasons that go beyond Chalabi. If it's true, then let him face the conequences while we get on with what we have to do.
So, contrary to wehat you might expect, I actually think it's more worrisome and significant if he's NOT guilty and being framed.
Finally, thanks for calling us notable neocons. Though we do have rather a few liberals on the team who might bristle at that, Dan & I will take it.
Posted by: Joe Katzman at June 2, 2004 02:03 PM
Winds of Change backs Chalabi? I didn't know that, seeing how I was recommending that we dump the man just several weeks ago.
Posted by: Dan Darling at June 2, 2004 08:52 AM