The Chalabi World Tour
Rep. George Miller says Ahmed Chalabi needs to be subpoened, not feted by powerful DC conservatives. I concur in my latest TAP Online column. There's going to be a protest outside the American Enterprise Instititute (1150 17th Street NW, Metro: Farragut North) tomorrow at 2PM where he's giving a speech. I'll be inside listening.
It's worth stepping back to provide some background on the point of his trip to America. Chalabi fell out of favor with the Bush administration at some point in early 2004 in favor of Iyad Allawi. The US government then did its best to help Allawi in the January 2005 and apparently contemplated helping him out with some election fraud before deciding against that. As a result, a coalition of Shiite Islamists has come to power. The Bush administration's grown disgruntled with that coalition, and one line of thinking in town holds that a substantially higher Sunni Arab turnout, less explicit support from Ayatollah Sistani for the SCIRI/Dawa coalition, and Kurdish preference for more secular governing partners may boot the current coalition from power. Chalabi is thought to have some chance of peeling a bloc of voters away from the Islamist coalition (he's in it now) and using his uncanny ability to be all things to all people to stitch together a diverse new government. His trip to DC is about promoting his efforts in this regard.
Ahmed Chalabi...hero of the neocons. He made up many of the lies that were used as our basis to go to war in Iraq. Was passing along secrets to Tehran to further his personal agenda (kina like outing a CIA operative). And he was exposed as a liar. Now he is a guest and being honored by the AEI, and is trying to cement his place in the new Iraqi government by talking himself up to his benefactors? Sounds like the neocons are trying to export the culture of cronyism and corruption to me...
November 8, 2005 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if Judy Miller will be there chronicling it all...
November 8, 2005 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Chalabi fell out of favor with the Bush administration at some point in early 2004 in favor of Iyad Allawi. The US government then did its best to help Allawi in the January 2005 and apparently contemplated helping him out with some election fraud before deciding against that.
Why, it's almost like they decided that having Chalabi in favor would be a liability during the election so they buried him with a symbolic 'raid' and then brought him back later. Gosh. It sounds positively Stalinist in political style. I must be mistaken or something.
I concur in my latest TAP Online column.
With my total agreement. However I must point out that the column seems to be missing something:
They certainly weren't credible in the sense of being offered by a person with no ulterior motives for telling his tale. Nor were they credible in the sense that Haideri could, say, pass a lie detector test about them. And at the time of the war, they weren't credible in the sense of being verified by officials from the UN Special Commission or the International Atomic Energy Agency with on-the-ground reporting.
So what happened?
[It looks like something got mistakenly chopped out right here] But will Iraq's constitution "be a model for the Middle East?" That's easy. The answer is no. Arabs aren't morons. They're well aware that plenty of democratic countries have democratic constitutions of various sorts and that a constitution is the sort of thing you probably want to have in a democracy. They're no doubt also well aware that Egypt has a fine-sounding constitution, just as the Soviet Union had several noble constitutions over the years, and the People's Republic of China has one today.These are tough questions, questions Chalabi could shed some light on.
Maybe I am misreading the break there, and the transition from tough questions about WMD to tough questions about the constitution makes sense to everyone but me. Or not.
ash
['Just trying to help.']
November 8, 2005 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wonder if the Washington press corps will add Chalabi to the tougher and tougher questions going to Scott McClennan?
If you need a dose of press corps questions and serious Scott dancing, check out today's WH briefing. Topics included:
November 8, 2005 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Spelling correction - Scott McClellan.
For more on Chalabi and AEI speech audience see Steve Clemons. Of interest people who had registered are being disinvited!
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/
November 8, 2005 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is there really any reason, general moral principles aside, why the USA shouldn't simply put a bullet through Chalabi's head?
November 8, 2005 7:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Chalbi has got the goods on the Bush Administration "Let's Illegally Invade Iraq " cabal. I bet he would make Scooter look like a espionage beginner. He can finger Cheney, Condolezza and all the rest and he is a smart and sneaky money and power hungry blackmailer. Just this last month he created a phoney Iraqi kidnapping.This "look good" event-- complete with full media coverage--showed him (Chalabi) saving a poor Irish journalist from the clutches of some of his cronies--he proclaimed himself the savior and a lot of the media bought his story then dropped it like a hot potato.hmmmmm.
Then there is his recent visit to Iran..this guy is S M A R T ..He knows he can, with a phone call to his now confidant and buddy Iranian President not only get the attention of the State Department but threaten to start WWIII by inciting violence between Iran and Israel via Iraq. He cleverly , AGAIN, has the USA State department and the Bush administration over a barrel. Plain and simple he is a slimeball (albeit a smart one)blackmailing the USA again. It would be too easy to see him die in a Jackal instigated plane crash or bullet to the head. We want him debriefed and exposed in oredr to expose those who are and have been willingly extorted.
When all is said and done he sould be shipped back to Lebanon to serve his time as a convicted embezzlor.
November 8, 2005 8:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ahmed Chalabi has never gassed a village with chemical weapons, Ahmed Chalabi has never sent minions to blow up a subway or skyscraping. Ahmed Chalabi has never built a gulag and stocked it with political opponents.
At worst Chalabi is a trickster, a snake-oil salesman, a two-faced politician, someone who tells ehatever audience that is in front of him what they want to hear. Maybe he did defraud a Jordanian bank, maybe he did pass intelligence onto Iran, although I think JMM's take on that issue is as good as anybody's.
Undoubtedly he's power hungry, undoubtedly if he got power. he'd engage in old-fashioned cronyism. But if you can't think of a worse scenario that Chalabi finagling his way into beoming the Iraqi PM, then you have a pretty dim imagination. Is there any basis to believe that he would be any less liberal or democratic than competing players in Iraq let alone the current heads of the Arab regimes?
I think that there is a serious displacement of anger going on when it comes to Chalabi. He is for opponents of the war the symbol of the whole misadventure. He clearly was (and still is) the focal point of neocon pipe dreams.
But if you had Chalabi and Zarqawi in front of you and a gun with one bullet and you hesistate as to which one to shoot then I think the Bushies have officially drvien you insane.
November 9, 2005 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink