In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
From the "With Friends Like These Department"
Talking Points Memo has some excellent posts about Neo Con Fave: Ahmed Chalabi
Chalabi investigates UN Oil For Food Scandal
No doubt you've heard of the still-emerging scandal over the UN oil-for-food program for Iraq. The fact that the program was a hotbed of corruption is not news. What has only emerged quite recently is that the Iraqi regime was apparently using contracts from the program as bribes and pay-offs to various western politicians, journalists and other dignitaries.
You may not have heard a sidenote to this scandal -- the question of who will be in charge of the investigation and who controls the key documentary evidence upon which the investigation will be based.
...
The crux of the matter, however, is whether the investigation will be conducted through some transparent process or whether it will be conducted by a team under the control of ... well, can you guess? Ahmed Chalabi.
AND:
Chalabi: Betrayer of the US, Spy for Iran, and friend to terrorists
We'll be covering each of these matters in the coming hours and days. But first, a note about this article in Newsweek which discusses US suspicions that Ahmed Chalabi and his close aides have been feeding the Iranians highly sensitive information about US security operations within Iraq.
This should not come as a great surprise. Chalabi's ties to the Iranians are well-known and have long been awkwardly acquiesced in by his supporters in Washington. Moreover, there have been plenty of warning signs of his willingness to play both sides of the fence. Chalabi and his supporters regularly take credit for trying to warn the US that a planned coup attempt, run by the CIA from Jordan in 1996, had been compromised and would fail.
High-ranking CIA agents, however, believed it was Chalabi who had tipped off the Iraqis because he -- i.e., Chalabi -- was not part of it, and thus would have been left out in the cold had it succeeded.
....
Then there's the matter of the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad on August 7th, 2003. I'm told that the Jordanians have phone intercept intelligence, which they shared with the US government, showing that Chalabi had advance warning of the bombing, which he chose not to share with the Jordanians or the Americans.
Of course, we still fund Chalabi to the tune of some $340,000 a month. So don't think your tax dollars aren't being well-spent. And that does not include the various highly-lucrative contracts doled out to his family members, political associates and cronies.
- rob 1:16 PM - [PermaLink] -
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