Chalabigate
"Weapons of Mass Deception"
2004-03-06
JINSA &Chalabi
Need to build a case for war? Step forward Mr Chalabi
If governments are going to rely on intelligence, its reliability is critical
Isabel Hilton
Saturday March 6, 2004
The Guardian
In the mayhem that followed the explosions in Baghdad and Karbala this week, Ahmad Chalabi, an ever more powerful member of the Iraqi Governing Council and a Pentagon favourite, was swiftly at the scene, behaving like a politician come to offer sympathy. It was a shrewd piece of public relations - if you forget the responsibility Chalabi bears for Iraq's present tragic condition. It was Chalabi, more than any other individual, who helped persuade the US that toppling Saddam Hussein would bring peace and democracy, and break the link that he alleged existed between the Iraqi leader and al-Qaida.
The argument surrounding the decision to go to war in Iraq, Tony Blair said yesterday, is not about trust or integrity but about judgment and intelligence. That is also the case his critics make. In the approach to war, both the US and the UK governments mobilised a mishmash of arguments in a campaign of persuasion that was based not on rigorous analysis of intelligence but on the selective use of data and informants. And in this sorry tale, no one played a more critical role than the man many proclaim the most likely future leader of Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi.
He has been working to take power in Iraq for a long time. The son of a wealthy and influential family in Iraq that lost its place with the fall of the monarchy, Chalabi has a long association with US intelligence. In the early 1990s, he was considered a serious asset by the CIA - but they soon found him to be unreliable. By then, however, he had found other supporters, among them the staff and advisers of one of the neo-cons' favourite thinktanks, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa) in Washington. In 1997, Jinsa declared: "Jinsa has been working closely with Iraqi National Council leader Dr Ahmad Chalabi to promote Saddam Hussein's removal from office and a subsequently democratic future for Iraq."
Jinsa describes its mandate as two-fold: "To educate the American public about the importance of an effective US defence capability...and to inform the American defence and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East." Their interests, Chalabi persuaded them, coincided: Saddam, the supporter of Palestinian suicide bombers, the strongest and most troublesome leader in the Arab world and a menace to Israel, should be replaced with a friendly government that would make peace with Israel and become the US's best Arab friend.
The advocates of radical action in the Middle East came to power with Bush. The next steps are now well documented. As Richard Perle once complained: "The CIA has been engaged in a character assassination of Ahmad Chalabi for years now, and it's a disgrace." To bypass such obstacles, an alternative intelligence group - the Office of Special Plans - was created. But there was still a shortage of evidence on two key points: that Saddam had WMD and that he had links to al-Qaida. Step forward Ahmad Chalabi, whose INC benefited from nearly $100m of US taxpayers money, despite Chalabi's conviction for a $300m bank fraud in Jordan. Chalabi, who knows a market when he sees one, claimed his sources inside and outside Iraq could supply the necessary evidence.
In 2001, Colin Powell declared: "He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction...our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbours of Iraq." Tony Blair told the Commons in November 2000 that, "We believe that the sanctions regime has effectively contained Saddam Hussein." These assessments coincided with the view of the intelligence services and the inspectors.
The alternative intelligence, marshalled to make the case for war, came overwhelmingly from Chalabi's INC and their carefully coached "sources". Among the INC allegations that have not been borne out were that Hussein had built mobile biological weapons facilities, that he was rapidly rebuilding his nuclear weapons programme and that he had trained Islamic warriors at a camp south of Baghdad. Now defence officials acknowledge that the defectors' tales were "shaky" at best.
On whose judgment was this shaky information included in official pre-war intelligence estimates of Iraq's illicit weapons programmes and key statements by US and UK politicians? On September 12 2002, for instance, claims by Iraqi military officers supplied by the INC that Iraq had been training Arabs in "hijacking planes and trains, planting explosives in cities, sabotage and assassinations" were given uncritical prominence in a White House report. And what is now described as an INC "fabrication" - that Iraq had mobile biological warfare research facilities - was included in Powell's presentation to the UN security council in February 2003.
To give wider credibility to this dubious narrative, Chalabi planted stories in mainstream newspapers such as the New York Times, stories that were then quoted as independent corroborative evidence by administration officials. The paper's now much-criticised specialist on WMD, Judith Miller, has acknowledged her 10-year association with Chalabi.
Chalabi has admitted that the "evidence" he supplied was wrong. Unlike Blair, he is no longer interested in pretending that there are any WMD in Iraq, but nor is he repentant. Bush may lose the election and Blair is trapped in the political minefield of the war's aftermath, but Chalabi is a clear winner. "We are heroes in error," he told the Telegraph. Since Saddam was gone, "What was said before is not important."
When the US flew Chalabi into Iraq by helicopter early in the war, along with 700 friends and supporters, he was not remotely electable. He did, though, look like a man positioning himself to be at the centre of power. This week, Iraq's provisional constitution was agreed. Given Bush's need to create a puppet government in time for the US elections, power will now remain in the hands of the governing council until such time as elections might be held - a promise that recedes into the future with each terrorist outrage. The first drafts of the Iraqi transitional administrative law were written by Chalabi's nephew. The longer elections are postponed, the better for Chalabi, who is now in control of Iraq's finances and of de-Ba'athification.
Perhaps his greatest coup was to gain possession of 25 tonnes of captured Saddam documents that could prove useful in the future. Before the war, for instance, the Jordanian foreign minister criticised Chalabi as untrustworthy. Chalabi then threatened to "expose" documentary evidence of the Jordanian royal family's close relations with Saddam. The public criticisms stopped. Since the war several forged documents have come into circulation. Some have been used to animate dead arguments, others to discredit critics of the war, such as George Galloway.
With power there also come opportunities for enrichment. US authorities in Iraq have awarded more than $400m in contracts to a company that has extensive family and business ties to Chalabi. One, for $327m, to supply equipment for the Iraqi armed forces, is now under review after protests to Congress.
If intelligence, Blair tells us, is to be of even greater importance in the future, its reliability is critical - an argument, perhaps, to learn from recent experience. Not for the US Defence Department. It plans to spend $4m over the next year buying intelligence on Iraq. And who does it plan to buy that intelligence from? Step forward Ahmad Chalabi.
Isabel.Hilton@guardian.co.uk
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1163522,00.html
This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
If governments are going to rely on intelligence, its reliability is critical
Isabel Hilton
Saturday March 6, 2004
The Guardian
In the mayhem that followed the explosions in Baghdad and Karbala this week, Ahmad Chalabi, an ever more powerful member of the Iraqi Governing Council and a Pentagon favourite, was swiftly at the scene, behaving like a politician come to offer sympathy. It was a shrewd piece of public relations - if you forget the responsibility Chalabi bears for Iraq's present tragic condition. It was Chalabi, more than any other individual, who helped persuade the US that toppling Saddam Hussein would bring peace and democracy, and break the link that he alleged existed between the Iraqi leader and al-Qaida.
The argument surrounding the decision to go to war in Iraq, Tony Blair said yesterday, is not about trust or integrity but about judgment and intelligence. That is also the case his critics make. In the approach to war, both the US and the UK governments mobilised a mishmash of arguments in a campaign of persuasion that was based not on rigorous analysis of intelligence but on the selective use of data and informants. And in this sorry tale, no one played a more critical role than the man many proclaim the most likely future leader of Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi.
He has been working to take power in Iraq for a long time. The son of a wealthy and influential family in Iraq that lost its place with the fall of the monarchy, Chalabi has a long association with US intelligence. In the early 1990s, he was considered a serious asset by the CIA - but they soon found him to be unreliable. By then, however, he had found other supporters, among them the staff and advisers of one of the neo-cons' favourite thinktanks, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa) in Washington. In 1997, Jinsa declared: "Jinsa has been working closely with Iraqi National Council leader Dr Ahmad Chalabi to promote Saddam Hussein's removal from office and a subsequently democratic future for Iraq."
Jinsa describes its mandate as two-fold: "To educate the American public about the importance of an effective US defence capability...and to inform the American defence and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East." Their interests, Chalabi persuaded them, coincided: Saddam, the supporter of Palestinian suicide bombers, the strongest and most troublesome leader in the Arab world and a menace to Israel, should be replaced with a friendly government that would make peace with Israel and become the US's best Arab friend.
The advocates of radical action in the Middle East came to power with Bush. The next steps are now well documented. As Richard Perle once complained: "The CIA has been engaged in a character assassination of Ahmad Chalabi for years now, and it's a disgrace." To bypass such obstacles, an alternative intelligence group - the Office of Special Plans - was created. But there was still a shortage of evidence on two key points: that Saddam had WMD and that he had links to al-Qaida. Step forward Ahmad Chalabi, whose INC benefited from nearly $100m of US taxpayers money, despite Chalabi's conviction for a $300m bank fraud in Jordan. Chalabi, who knows a market when he sees one, claimed his sources inside and outside Iraq could supply the necessary evidence.
In 2001, Colin Powell declared: "He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction...our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbours of Iraq." Tony Blair told the Commons in November 2000 that, "We believe that the sanctions regime has effectively contained Saddam Hussein." These assessments coincided with the view of the intelligence services and the inspectors.
The alternative intelligence, marshalled to make the case for war, came overwhelmingly from Chalabi's INC and their carefully coached "sources". Among the INC allegations that have not been borne out were that Hussein had built mobile biological weapons facilities, that he was rapidly rebuilding his nuclear weapons programme and that he had trained Islamic warriors at a camp south of Baghdad. Now defence officials acknowledge that the defectors' tales were "shaky" at best.
On whose judgment was this shaky information included in official pre-war intelligence estimates of Iraq's illicit weapons programmes and key statements by US and UK politicians? On September 12 2002, for instance, claims by Iraqi military officers supplied by the INC that Iraq had been training Arabs in "hijacking planes and trains, planting explosives in cities, sabotage and assassinations" were given uncritical prominence in a White House report. And what is now described as an INC "fabrication" - that Iraq had mobile biological warfare research facilities - was included in Powell's presentation to the UN security council in February 2003.
To give wider credibility to this dubious narrative, Chalabi planted stories in mainstream newspapers such as the New York Times, stories that were then quoted as independent corroborative evidence by administration officials. The paper's now much-criticised specialist on WMD, Judith Miller, has acknowledged her 10-year association with Chalabi.
Chalabi has admitted that the "evidence" he supplied was wrong. Unlike Blair, he is no longer interested in pretending that there are any WMD in Iraq, but nor is he repentant. Bush may lose the election and Blair is trapped in the political minefield of the war's aftermath, but Chalabi is a clear winner. "We are heroes in error," he told the Telegraph. Since Saddam was gone, "What was said before is not important."
When the US flew Chalabi into Iraq by helicopter early in the war, along with 700 friends and supporters, he was not remotely electable. He did, though, look like a man positioning himself to be at the centre of power. This week, Iraq's provisional constitution was agreed. Given Bush's need to create a puppet government in time for the US elections, power will now remain in the hands of the governing council until such time as elections might be held - a promise that recedes into the future with each terrorist outrage. The first drafts of the Iraqi transitional administrative law were written by Chalabi's nephew. The longer elections are postponed, the better for Chalabi, who is now in control of Iraq's finances and of de-Ba'athification.
Perhaps his greatest coup was to gain possession of 25 tonnes of captured Saddam documents that could prove useful in the future. Before the war, for instance, the Jordanian foreign minister criticised Chalabi as untrustworthy. Chalabi then threatened to "expose" documentary evidence of the Jordanian royal family's close relations with Saddam. The public criticisms stopped. Since the war several forged documents have come into circulation. Some have been used to animate dead arguments, others to discredit critics of the war, such as George Galloway.
With power there also come opportunities for enrichment. US authorities in Iraq have awarded more than $400m in contracts to a company that has extensive family and business ties to Chalabi. One, for $327m, to supply equipment for the Iraqi armed forces, is now under review after protests to Congress.
If intelligence, Blair tells us, is to be of even greater importance in the future, its reliability is critical - an argument, perhaps, to learn from recent experience. Not for the US Defence Department. It plans to spend $4m over the next year buying intelligence on Iraq. And who does it plan to buy that intelligence from? Step forward Ahmad Chalabi.
Isabel.Hilton@guardian.co.uk
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1163522,00.html
This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Milton Frihetsson, 20:28
