Our man in Iraq

Josh Marshall has a good post on Chalabi's nose-thumbing (Chalabi says it doesn't matter that the intelligence which he provided the U.S. on Saddam's weapons capabilities was bogus - it got him what he wanted). I need to do a little digging and find out just why it is that we are so tied in to this guy.

From Josh:

According to this KnightRidder article from late last week the Pentagon has set aside between $3 and $4 million to fund Chalabi's Information Collection Program through 2004. So we want to keep buying Chalabi's prized intel for at least the next ten months? We're far past the point where there's any question that basically all the intel we got from Chalabi was bogus. We're not far from the point of concluding that it was knowingly bogus or at least passed on with a willful indifference to its validity. And we're still going to pay his 'intelligence' operation $4 million more this year? Isn't the $400 million worth of contracts to companies tied to his family enough to keep him happy?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.