How Chalabi went from playing footsie with Pickles to being a complete unknown

[NNN0LHI]

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/08/chalabis-sordid-history/



Today, Ahmed Chalabi arrives in the United States. The Guardian reports:

{Chalabi} is due to meet Ms Rice at the State Department tomorrow, and John Snow, the treasury secretary, today. He is also expected to see Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, and possibly the vice-president, Dick Cheney.

Here’s a short rap sheet on the man who the administration used to provide justification for the Iraq war:

PENTAGON FUNDED CHALABI TO PROVIDE RATIONALE FOR WAR: The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency paid the INC $335,000 a month in the lead-up to the Iraq war to gather intelligence. In all, the Bush White House has given the INC at least $39 million over the past 5 years. {IPS, 5/23/04; New Yorker, 6/7/04}

CHALABI’S IRAQI NATIONAL CONGRESS WAS MAJOR SOURCE OF DATA FOR PENTAGON OFFICE OF SPECIAL PLANS: According to a report in the New Yorker, analysts based in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans “relied on data gathered by other intelligence agencies and also on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, or I.N.C., the exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi.” “You had to treat {the I.N.C.} with suspicion,” a former Middle East station chief said of Chalabi’s people. ‘The I.N.C. has a track record of manipulating information because it has an agenda. It’s a political unit-not an intelligence agency.’” {New Yorker, 5/12/03}

CHALABI ATTENDED PLANNING MEETING AT THE PENTAGON JUST DAYS AFTER 9/11 ATTACKS: On September 18, 2001, Richard Perle convened a two-day meeting of the Defense Policy Board, a group that advises the Pentagon. Chalabi, who was a guest speaker at this meeting, made a presentation on the Iraqi threat. {Vanity Fair, 5/04}

[Disturbed]

1. Chalabi holds the ultimate weapons

Ahmad Chalabi - It's All Bad News | MetaFilter
Chalabi holds the ultimate weapons -- several dozen tons of documents and individual files seized by his Iraqi National Congress from Saddam Hussein's ...


http://www.metafilter.com/32087/Ahmad-Chalabi-Its-All-Bad-News