(or, THE RISE, FALL AND RESURRECTION OF AHMAD CHALABI)
Ahmad Chalabi has been popping up in the news a lot lately, so I thought it might be useful, before the Bush Administration goes and installs him as King of Iraq, to remind us all of his downfall a year and a half ago, and the possible connection between it and Larry Franklin, indicted Pentagon leaker.
In the spring of 2004, the sudden fall of Congress' and the Bush Administration's favorite Iraqi dissident and provider of bogus intel, Ahmad Chalabi, had many scratching their heads. How could a man who was specially airlifted into the Iraqi war zone in April 2003, now be on the outs with the government that sponsored him?
See below the fold for more...
Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress' fall from grace began on May 19, 2004, when the Pentagon indicated that it would end their
$335,000 per month payments to the INC for "intelligence gathering." The very next day, Chalabi's home and offices were
raided and searched by U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. Hours after the raid,
U.S. and Iraqi officials announced that arrest warrants had been issued had been issued for 15 individuals accused of kidnapping, fraud and "associated matters." Eight of the 15 were members of the INC. An Iraqi judge even alleged that the accused had been involved in detaining and torturing people, as well as stealing government vehicles for personal use and illegally taking over government facilities.
Ahmad Chalabi had been thoroughly humiliated, and his future in Iraq could not have been more in doubt. But, apparently, the U.S. government was not finished: CBS News reported in their broadcast of May 21, 2004, that, according to "senior U.S. officials," there is evidence that "Chalabi has been passing highly-classified U.S. intelligence to Iran." In a report titled "America's `Best Friend' A Spy," Lesley Stahl in essence informed America that, not only has the Pentagon severed their economic ties with the INC, not only has Ahmad Chalabi's home and offices been ransacked in a search, and not only have members of the INC been charged with serious crimes, but Chalabi himself has been acting as a spy on behalf of a card-carrying member of the Axis of EvilTM. The report even went as far to say that, "The evidence shows that Chalabi - who was once seen as the man likely to lead Iraq by White House and Pentagon officials - personally gave Iranian intelligence officers information so sensitive that if revealed it could, quote, `get Americans killed.' The evidence is said to be `rock solid.'"
It seems obvious now with the benefit of hindsight, but this sudden three-day turnaround in the fortunes of a Pentagon favorite was clearly intentionally designed to make certain people ask rhetorically: "Why does Ahmad Chalabi hate America?" But, the question still remains: who ordered this "work up" on Chalabi, and why?
The first clue comes from the superseding indictment against Pentagon Iran analyst and AIPAC spy Lawrence Franklin. On page 14, in Paragraph 39, there is a somewhat mysterious allegation that Franklin, on May 21, 2004, "provided to reporters from a national news organization Top Secret/SCI national defense information concerning meetings involving two Middle Eastern officials. Shortly thereafter, the new organization, quoting FRANKLIN, broadcast a report that an unidentified source had specified that the U.S. government had obtained intelligence pertaining to these meetings and further provided details based on information FRANKLIN had supplied to the reporters."
Knowing what we know about May 21, 2004, and the CBS News report that began the "Chalabi spies for Iran" allegations, it does not take a large leap in imagination to conclude that Franklin provided Stahl with the "scoop" on Chalabi. But, what makes this allegation interesting in the context of the rest of the superseding indictment is that it stands out because it is the only allegation in the entire document that Franklin communicated classified information to a member of the media directly. In all other alleged leaks, Franklin communicated with either AIPACers, or officials from foreign countries.
So, did Franklin act on his own, wishing personally to drive the nails further into Chalabi's political coffin? Or, was he ordered to do so by someone higher up within the Pentagon, say, Douglas Feith, or William Luti?
The possibility that Franklin acted alone cannot be discounted, but the fact that the Pentagon had plenty of reasons to cut Chalabi loose, and bury him in a dark hole, in order to protect themselves makes it more likely that Franklin was ordered to make a controlled leak. Remember, there were a lot of things happening before Chalabi's fall that could have lead to some potentially uncomfortable revelations regarding the reliance on INC bogus intelligence and defectors:
- Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the Plame leak was already underway, and it could easily have lead an investigation of the Niger uranium forgeries.
- David Kay had already informed the Senate that "we were all wrong" when it came to Iraqi WMD's, raising questions as to "how did we get it wrong, then?"
- Colin Powell had appeared on NBC News Meet the Press on May 16, 2004, and, despite the best efforts of his Bush administration zampolit, admitted that that much of the information he had been given about WMD's was "inaccurate and wrong, and, in some cases, deliberately misleading."
- The 9/11 Commission had finally shown some cajones and forced Condoleeza Rice to testify on April 8, 2004, which lead to the disclosure of the title of the President's Daily Brief (PDB), titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike In U.S.," and caused more people to publicly wonder how clueless or blind the Bush administration is.
- The stunning public relations disaster of the charred bodies of four Blackwater USA being dragged through the streets of Fallujah occurred on March 31, 2004, causing many to remember that the American people were promised by men such as Chalabi that we would be greeted as liberators.
- On March 30, 2004, Charles Duelfer, Kay's replacement as head of the Iraq Survey Group, told Congress, essentially, "Nope! Still no WMD's over there! So, instead, we're lookin' for evidence of Saddam's intentions!"
- On March 2, 2004, a UN report concluded that Iraq had no WMD's of any significance after 1994.
- In mid to late February 2004, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence expanded its investigation in prewar intelligence to include looking into how the intelligence was used by administration officials, and also mulled whether or not it should issue subpoenas in order to obtain documents the White House was withholding.
All of these developments in early 2004 could have easily lead to uncomfortable questions for the Pentagon, and the White House, regarding their coziness with Chalabi and the INC. So, in true Rovian fashion, someone within the Bush administration clearly thought it would be a good idea to not only cut ties with Ahmad Chalabi, but to completely bury him in the process. Several steps were taken, and Mr. Larry Franklin, it appears, may have been recruited to help do the dirty work..
But, now, what to make of Chalabi's return to the scene of the crime during a time of heightened scrutiny of prewar intelligence in the wake of the Libby indictment? Is Team Bush desperately seeking for a candidate for Most Acceptable Despot in the wake of a failed attempt at establishing a functioning, peaceful, America-loving democratic state? That remains to be seen. But, certainly, after such a swift and coordinated attack upon Chalabi in mid-2004, his official resurrection in late 2005 would be even more stunning than his orchestrated fall.