Talking Point: Bush & Cheney Were Ahmed Chalabi's "Willing Dupes"

[DrFunkenstein]

Chalabi was the quintessential flim-flam man, with a history of massive bank fraud in Jordan. He sold the adminstration a bill of goods, suggesting massive stockpiles of WMDs. Bush and Cheney believed him, even propped him as potential leader of Iraq, because they wanted to believe him.

The CIA had serious reservations about the quality of the intelligence Chalabi was providing, so what did they do? They invented the DIA, whose primary purpose was believing Chalabi's sources.

After spending literally millions and millions of dollars giving this guy carte blanche to run his operation, the military has finally pulled the plug, raided his offices on charges of spying for Iran, and he's wanted by the Iraqi national government for, again, massive fraud.

This was front page news yesterday, and it is a perfect weapon for Dems to nail Bush on national security.

We must erode the assumption that Bush is "strong" on defense. His failures are numerous, but few will play to middle and right-leaning America better than demonstrating that Bush was a dupe and why he was so easily fooled - not once, not twice, but many, many times. Shame on him.

The phrase "willing dupe" neatly conveys this message as sound bite. Pass it on.

[zbdent]

1. Pffft. Like Bush ever really did his homework

Like he ever really read much of any book that he had to do a report on.

Cliff's Notes would lose him . . .

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. Did they ever believe him, or was the story something

they could run with, in full knowledge that it was a fraud. And, although it was bogus, it could be used because you can't prove a negative - a ploy used over and over by these cynical redneck bastards.

[DrFunkenstein]

3. They Said It Was Solid Evidence, The CIA Strongly Disagreed

This is well-doumented. Probably the best source is an excellent article in the New Yorker on the subject:

http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040607fa_fact1

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. They claimed it was solid

They made sure to pull the plug on the UN inspections and rushed into the invasion so that the "evidence" remained solid up to the end.

In light of this, one either has to believe that they were convinced that of an immediate threat, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that no threat existed, or that they exploited this "evidence" and took advantage of the post 9/11 hysteria to build an entirely bogus justification for invasion.

[blm]

9. Of course they knew. That's what made them "willing dupes" and

why ANY of their claims about Chalabi are so fraudulent.

They were in on it WITH Chalabi. Chalabi was a useful tool for them. Any anger with him now is all for show.

[imax2268]

5. We know...

from several insiders books that they had a clear plan to go into Iraq before 9/11...so either they were "willing and co-operative dupes" or they are just plain incompitent...I choose both...

[DrFunkenstein]

6. These Are Two Of My Three Major Talking Points

To scratch at Bush's national security ratings.

1. Incompetence

2. Willing dupes

3. Tora Bora

#1 is particularly useful for a Kerry soundbite for his Iraq position: "I voted to hold Saddam accountable, not for Bush's incompetence."

[WilliamPitt]

7. SOMETHING IMPORTANT I REMEMBERED

Wednesday 24 September 2003

There is not enough grammar in the entirety of the English language to describe the incredible international humiliation that has befallen the United States of America. That this humiliation was brought down upon the American people by the man supposedly in charge of the country is, in all honesty, no big surprise for those who have been watching this all unfold. The layers of crushing embarrassment have been building like river sediment for months upon months upon months. On Tuesday, however, George W. Bush managed to completely obliterate the hard-won standing the United States has earned within the global community.

Never mind that the Iraqi seat was filled at the United Nations by none other than the crawling kingsnake himself, Ahmad Chalabi. Chalabi has been cheerleading for war in Iraq for years, and became a boon companion of Donald Rumsfeld and the other neocon hawks who cobbled the war together with a tapestry of lies and fear-mongering. He was, in fact, Rumsfeld's hand-picked leader-in-waiting of Iraq as early as 1997. Chalabi was convicted of 32 counts of bank fraud and sentenced to 22 years imprisonment by a Jordanian court in 1992, and yet this hand-picked sock puppet was George W. Bush's chosen exemplar of a free and democratic Iraq. If you want to know one big reason why the mainstream media reported so long and so erroneously about Iraq's weapons capabilities, look to Chalabi, who was the main source for New York Times reporter Judy Miller's horribly inaccurate reporting on the matter. Where the Times goes, the others will follow. Thank you, Ahmad. I hope the chair is comfortable. You are no more deserving of its accommodation than the vile people who occupied it before you.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/092403A.shtml

Remember this? Bush put him in the UN chair for Iraq.

[Larkspur]

8. So was "Joementum"

Sen. Lieberman called Chalabi "a person of strength, principle and real national commitment." (Joe Conason, Our Man in Iraq: Hero or Crook? , www.observer.com 4/23/03.