Thursday, May 27, 2004

The NY Times "admission"

You recall - where they apologized for being "duped". It really didn't answer for the effect their errors had, if you ask me, and you didn't - well, Jim at least asked for a link to the story.

So, don't ask me, but....

Chalabi now claims that it was 'outlandish' for the CIA to actually believe him. He protests that it was ridiculous that "an exile organization, which was criticized and vilified by the CIA throughout the past decade, would provide information and the United States officials would take it as credible and go to war on its basis." Here is the translation "How could the CIA possibly believe a liar like me. Fooled you once. Fooled you twice. Get ready. I am about to fool you again."

For once, Chalabi is right. It is ridiculous to believe that the CIA would fall for his attempts to mislead them with bogus intelligence. Of course, it wasn't the CIA that bit his bait. It was a different 'intelligence' outfit that went by the name of the Office of Special Plans. And they didn't just bite the bait. They also helped prepare it.

...As this story develops, we will all discover a dirty little secret about certain prominent journalists who collaborated with the neo-cons and Chalabi to systematically pull off the greatest 'intelligence failure' in American history.

...It is now well established that Chalabi had a difficult time marketing his wares to the DIA and CIA. This infuriated the neo-con men who had used millions of taxpayer dollars to create the fictional Iraqi National Congress and promote Chalabi as Iraq's great last hope. At first, they resorted to bullying techniques. Cheney and Libby would actually go down to Langley and put pressure on intelligence analysts to be more 'aggressive'.

At some point, the neo-cons gave up on the CIA and started to berate the intelligence community in public. They flexed their considerable media muscle at FOX and CNN. Both of these media monopolies have been transformed into permanent podiums for the neo-con school of deception.

...Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith to propose the establishment of an alternative 'more aggressive' intelligence operation within the Pentagon. They set up the Office of Special plans and staffed it with other neo-con 'contractors' from the AEI. They now had in place an intelligence unit that was ready to swallow whole any fantasy concocted by Ahmed Chalabi and the INC. In effect they created one monster to feast on the produce of another one of their monsters.

The scheme to dumb down intelligence was supported by Rumsfeld and Cheney. It is highly unlikely that major players like Tony Blair and the media titans were unaware of this rogue intelligence operation which was tasked with designing and promoting 'intelligence failures'. Alternative news operations like Antiwar.com gave real time blow by blow insights into the shenanigans of this professional neo-con 'intelligence failure' design team. Jim Lobe, Justin Raimondo and Karen Kwiatkowski painted such a perfect portrayal of their scams that I began to suspect they were imbedded journalists with the neo-con brigades. Thanks to their efforts and the work of many other alternative 'web' journalists, we have tons of documentation proving that there was no 'intelligence failure'. Their work also testifies to the fact that any journalist worth his salt had ready access to the same information.

...The Post, along with the Times and the Wall Street Journal, had full concrete knowledge of the OSP intelligence scam. Like the neo-cons they are now acting out the part of Chalabi's dupes. In fact, many of their reporters took an active part in leaking OSP 'findings' or in originating OSP 'intelligence'. While Krauthammer continues to dish out his poison on the pages of the Post, Judith Miller seems to have disappeared. You got to ask yourself what Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times, is trying to hide.

...After the war, when the United States failed to discover any WMDs, the 'intelligence failure' scheme gradually became public knowledge. By then the Office of Special Plans had been disbanded and the CIA was hung out to dry for the sins of the neo-con cabal. It is now an accepted myth that it was CIA agents who digested the Chalabi bait. In fact, the neo-cons have been audacious enough to take to the airwaves and berate the CIA for misleading the nation into war.

The Chalabi story is not nearly over....

Chalabi's new suit
By Ahmed Amr
May 26, 2004