Iraq -Was the US a stooge and a pawn of Iran in the 1st place?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

The article below is from 2004. But now that long dead skeletons keep popping up inconveniently for the Bush administration and the neo-cons and the PNAC cabal - I would like to keep this skeleton among the living scandals. The game for winning this world back from the greed squad requires effective long term memory. This whole issue deserves a lot more investigation. How ironic, if, in the War On Terra, we were the tool and pidgeon of one of the charter members of the "Axis of Evil". This is a short article but it covers a lot of ground. Just remember who sat with Laura Bush in the honored seat at the State of the Union. I bet the Iranians were busting a gut laughing their heads off.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/justify/2004/0218chalabiconnection.htm

Ahmad Chalabi and His Iranian Connection
Stratfor Weekly
February 18, 2004

Summary

The United States is struggling over the question of how U.S. intelligence was so deeply mistaken about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. One of the points that is consistently brought up is that much of the intelligence flowed through the Iraqi National Council, an opposition group led by Ahmad Chalabi. It is now well known that Chalabi's sources were not ideal. What is less well known is the close, long-term relationship that Chalabi, a favorite of Washington's, had with Iran. Chalabi, an Iraqi Shiite, was and remains in constant contact with Tehran. We have assumed he was a channel between Washington and Tehran. Given the erroneous intelligence he gave the United States, his relationship with Iran requires careful examination.

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However, there would appear to us to be something more here. In particular, there is a complexity that is usually omitted: namely, the relationship between Chalabi and leading figures in Iran. Prior to the war, Chalabi, an Iraqi Shiite who lived in the West for decades, made several trips to Tehran to confer with Iranian officials on a number of issues. He has continued to travel to Iran since the end of the war. Not to put too fine a point on it, Chalabi has had and continues to have excellent relations with Iran, as well as with leading Shia in Iraq

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If we step back now, a different potential explanation emerges. First, Chalabi was extremely close to the Iranians prior to the war. Second, he provided much of Washington's prewar intelligence on Iraq. Third, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. Fourth, the Iranians, along with the Iraqi Shia, are the main beneficiaries of the U.S. invasion. In that case, who Chalabi was and whose interests he actually was serving become the central questions.
This is not an argument against the invasion from a strategic point of view, nor an argument that it was a failure. In the real world, things are rarely so clear-cut. But it does raise a vital question: Who exactly is Ahmad Chalabi? He has been caricatured as an American stooge and used as a tool by the Defense Department. As we consider the intelligence failures in Iraq, Chalabi's role in those failures and his relationship with senior Iranian officials of all factions, a question needs to be raised: Who was whose stooge?