Saturday, May 22, 2004

Our man in Iraq

Was their man in Iran. And we were paying him.

At least that's the story they're telling us about him now.

The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has been used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets, according to intelligence sources.

"Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program information to provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source Friday who was briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions, which were based on a review of thousands of internal documents.
  Newsday article

Jordan's King Abdullah fueled the U.S. move against Iraqi leader Ahmed Chalabi by providing bombshell intelligence that his group was spying for Iran, The Post has learned.

An explosive dossier that the Jordanian monarch recently brought with him to White House sessions with President Bush detailed Mafia-style extortion rackets and secret information on U.S. military operations being passed to Iran, diplomats said.
  Iraq Net article


However, as Josh Marshall points out, the suspicions of an Iranian intelligence connection are hardly new.

So what gives?

I'm still wondering just why Chalabi has been our man. At least Rumsfiend's man. He either had The Fiend fooled - well, okay, he did have The Fiend fooled - but, perhaps DoD thought they were getting something out of him - okay, perhaps just a superficially legitimate reason to invade Iraq. Maybe that's all there is to it, and they were willing to overlook any real national security risks in order to get that.

Of course there's those documents he had, but he didn't have those before the "Mission Accomplished" fiasco saw him airlifted by the U.S. into Baghdad to be "our man". So, I'm back to the first reason - he offered Rumsfiend's crew an open door to take Iraq.

Well, it's just speculation on my part. What else can I do here?