Chalabigate
"Weapons of Mass Deception"
2004-11-12
Pentagon Hijacked
In March 2002, Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker that "A dispute over Chalabi's potential usefulness preoccupies the bureaucracy" within the U.S. government, "as the civilian leadership in the Pentagon continues to insist that only the INC can lead the opposition. At the same time, a former Administration official told me,
'Everybody but the Pentagon and the office of the Vice-President wants to ditch the INC.'
So where did this conviction of Chalabi´s INC excellence and intel accuracy come from? Former Pentagon employee Karen Kwiatkowski has this to say:
In the spring of 2002, I was a cynical but willing staff officer, almost two years into my three-year tour at the office of the secretary of defense, undersecretary for policy, sub-Saharan Africa. In April, a call for volunteers went out for the Near East South Asia directorate (NESA). None materialized. By May, the call transmogrified into a posthaste demand for any staff officer, and I was "volunteered" to enter what would be a well-appointed den of iniquity.
The education I would receive there was like an M. Night Shyamalan movie -- intense, fascinating and frightening. While the people were very much alive, I saw a dead philosophy -- Cold War anti-communism and neo-imperialism -- walking the corridors of the Pentagon. It wore the clothing of counterterrorism and spoke the language of a holy war between good and evil. The evil was recognized by the leadership to be resident mainly in the Middle East and articulated by Islamic clerics and radicals. But there were other enemies within, anyone who dared voice any skepticism about their grand plans, including Secretary of State Colin Powell and Gen. Anthony Zinni.
From May 2002 until February 2003, I observed firsthand the formation of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and watched the latter stages of the neoconservative capture of the policy-intelligence nexus in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. This seizure of the reins of U.S. Middle East policy was directly visible to many of us working in the Near East South Asia policy office, and yet there seemed to be little any of us could do about it.
I saw a narrow and deeply flawed policy favored by some executive appointees in the Pentagon used to manipulate and pressurize the traditional relationship between policymakers in the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies.
I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0310-09.htm
In other words the neocons hijacked the pentagon and manufactured "intelligence reports" they themslves invented and presented this to congress and the president.
Pentagon Spies?
May 26, 2004
The fallout from the fall of Ahmad Chalabi looks like it might splash all over the Pentacons—the neocon hardliners in the Pentagon who've backed Chalabi since the '90s. And Chalabi's backers are worried. Here's today's Wall Street Journal editorial, citing a report in The New York Times that U.S. intelligence officials are investigating Pentagon officials:
Critics of Mr. Bush's Iraq policy are using the raid and the leaks as an excuse for demanding a purge of anyone who ever supported Mr. Chalabi. A Monday piece in The New York Times , based on more anonymous leaks, noted that 'intelligence officials' are investigating a handful of officials in Washington and Iraq who dealt regularly with Mr. Chalabi.' Are they Iranian agents, too?
Maybe, and maybe not. But next, here's a report from The Guardian :
An intelligence source in Washington said the CIA confirmed its long-held suspicions when it discovered that a piece of information from an electronic communications intercept by the National Security Agency had ended up in Iranian hands. The information was so sensitive that its circulation had been restricted to a handful of officials."This was 'sensitive compartmented information'—SCI—and it was tracked right back to the Iranians through Aras Habib," the intelligence source said.The DIA is also reported to have launched its own inquiry into the INC-Iran link.An intelligence source in Washington said the FBI investigation into the affair would begin with Mr. Chalabi's "handlers" in the Pentagon, who include William Luti, the former head of the office of special plans, and his immediate superior, Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defence for policy. There is no evidence that they were the source of the leaks. Other INC supporters at the Pentagon may have given away classified information in an attempt to give Mr. Chalabi an advantage in the struggle for power surrounding the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government on June 30.
Next is this, from UPI yesterday, reporting that the FBI is investigating a Pentagon official and a former Pentagon official for having passed classified info to Chalabi. Though not named, the two officials in the UPI story are, according to my sources, Harold Rhode, an official in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, and Michael Rubin, now at the American Enterprise Institute. Reports UPI:
Officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority are suspected of having leaked sensitive CIA and Pentagon intercepts to the U.S.-funded Iraqi National Congress, which passed them on to the government of Iran, according to federal law enforcement officials and serving and former U.S. intelligence officials.These sources also acknowledged that the Bush administration has been the victim of an enormous Iran-perpetrated intelligence fraud that worked to provoke a U.S. military invasion of Iraq in order to defeat Iran's bitter, long-time enemy, a campaign of deception which one U.S. source called "positively a most brilliant and extraordinarily successful operation."This source said that some of the intercepts are believed to have been given to Chalabi by two U.S. officials of the Coalition Provision Authority, both of whom are not named here because UPI could not reach them for comment.Other targets of the probe include senior and other Pentagon officials who dealt with Chalabi on a regular basis, this source said.One former CPA official has returned to the United States and is employed at the American Enterprise Institute, the former very senior official said, a fact which FBI sources confirmed without additional comment.
When I asked Rubin if the story was accurate, he replied with the three-word message: "It is untrue."
It's not clear where all this might lead. Certainly, the CIA is a sworn enemy of Chalabi, and it has been for many years. And certainly, Chalabi's enemies would love to use the scandal over Chalabi's Iran connections to tarnish his Pentacon allies. But it seems to me unlikely that they would risk a formal investigation unless they had some concrete evidence to support what otherwise would be a witch hunt.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/pentagon_spies.php
'Everybody but the Pentagon and the office of the Vice-President wants to ditch the INC.'
So where did this conviction of Chalabi´s INC excellence and intel accuracy come from? Former Pentagon employee Karen Kwiatkowski has this to say:
In the spring of 2002, I was a cynical but willing staff officer, almost two years into my three-year tour at the office of the secretary of defense, undersecretary for policy, sub-Saharan Africa. In April, a call for volunteers went out for the Near East South Asia directorate (NESA). None materialized. By May, the call transmogrified into a posthaste demand for any staff officer, and I was "volunteered" to enter what would be a well-appointed den of iniquity.
The education I would receive there was like an M. Night Shyamalan movie -- intense, fascinating and frightening. While the people were very much alive, I saw a dead philosophy -- Cold War anti-communism and neo-imperialism -- walking the corridors of the Pentagon. It wore the clothing of counterterrorism and spoke the language of a holy war between good and evil. The evil was recognized by the leadership to be resident mainly in the Middle East and articulated by Islamic clerics and radicals. But there were other enemies within, anyone who dared voice any skepticism about their grand plans, including Secretary of State Colin Powell and Gen. Anthony Zinni.
From May 2002 until February 2003, I observed firsthand the formation of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and watched the latter stages of the neoconservative capture of the policy-intelligence nexus in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. This seizure of the reins of U.S. Middle East policy was directly visible to many of us working in the Near East South Asia policy office, and yet there seemed to be little any of us could do about it.
I saw a narrow and deeply flawed policy favored by some executive appointees in the Pentagon used to manipulate and pressurize the traditional relationship between policymakers in the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies.
I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0310-09.htm
In other words the neocons hijacked the pentagon and manufactured "intelligence reports" they themslves invented and presented this to congress and the president.
Pentagon Spies?
May 26, 2004
The fallout from the fall of Ahmad Chalabi looks like it might splash all over the Pentacons—the neocon hardliners in the Pentagon who've backed Chalabi since the '90s. And Chalabi's backers are worried. Here's today's Wall Street Journal editorial, citing a report in The New York Times that U.S. intelligence officials are investigating Pentagon officials:
Critics of Mr. Bush's Iraq policy are using the raid and the leaks as an excuse for demanding a purge of anyone who ever supported Mr. Chalabi. A Monday piece in The New York Times , based on more anonymous leaks, noted that 'intelligence officials' are investigating a handful of officials in Washington and Iraq who dealt regularly with Mr. Chalabi.' Are they Iranian agents, too?
Maybe, and maybe not. But next, here's a report from The Guardian :
An intelligence source in Washington said the CIA confirmed its long-held suspicions when it discovered that a piece of information from an electronic communications intercept by the National Security Agency had ended up in Iranian hands. The information was so sensitive that its circulation had been restricted to a handful of officials."This was 'sensitive compartmented information'—SCI—and it was tracked right back to the Iranians through Aras Habib," the intelligence source said.The DIA is also reported to have launched its own inquiry into the INC-Iran link.An intelligence source in Washington said the FBI investigation into the affair would begin with Mr. Chalabi's "handlers" in the Pentagon, who include William Luti, the former head of the office of special plans, and his immediate superior, Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defence for policy. There is no evidence that they were the source of the leaks. Other INC supporters at the Pentagon may have given away classified information in an attempt to give Mr. Chalabi an advantage in the struggle for power surrounding the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government on June 30.
Next is this, from UPI yesterday, reporting that the FBI is investigating a Pentagon official and a former Pentagon official for having passed classified info to Chalabi. Though not named, the two officials in the UPI story are, according to my sources, Harold Rhode, an official in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, and Michael Rubin, now at the American Enterprise Institute. Reports UPI:
Officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority are suspected of having leaked sensitive CIA and Pentagon intercepts to the U.S.-funded Iraqi National Congress, which passed them on to the government of Iran, according to federal law enforcement officials and serving and former U.S. intelligence officials.These sources also acknowledged that the Bush administration has been the victim of an enormous Iran-perpetrated intelligence fraud that worked to provoke a U.S. military invasion of Iraq in order to defeat Iran's bitter, long-time enemy, a campaign of deception which one U.S. source called "positively a most brilliant and extraordinarily successful operation."This source said that some of the intercepts are believed to have been given to Chalabi by two U.S. officials of the Coalition Provision Authority, both of whom are not named here because UPI could not reach them for comment.Other targets of the probe include senior and other Pentagon officials who dealt with Chalabi on a regular basis, this source said.One former CPA official has returned to the United States and is employed at the American Enterprise Institute, the former very senior official said, a fact which FBI sources confirmed without additional comment.
When I asked Rubin if the story was accurate, he replied with the three-word message: "It is untrue."
It's not clear where all this might lead. Certainly, the CIA is a sworn enemy of Chalabi, and it has been for many years. And certainly, Chalabi's enemies would love to use the scandal over Chalabi's Iran connections to tarnish his Pentacon allies. But it seems to me unlikely that they would risk a formal investigation unless they had some concrete evidence to support what otherwise would be a witch hunt.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/pentagon_spies.php
Milton Frihetsson, 16:17
