"I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess." That, in a nutshell, is George W. Bush's valedictory thought about invading Iraq, in interviews with Charlie Gibson on ABC this week.
"A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is [sic] a reason to remove Saddam Hussein," Bush added.
But the historical record shows that the "lot of people" consisted mainly of Dick Cheney and his henchman, relying on a swindling Ahmad Chalabi and torturing CIA intelligence into a false case against the Iraqi regime he was salivating to replace.
"We've really got to make the case" against Hussein, Bush told Secretary of State Colin Powell in January 2003, "and I want you to make it" at the UN.
A few days later, according to the Washington Post, Powell was "taken aback" by "a 48-page, single-spaced compilation of Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction program, replete with drama, rhetorical devices and a kitchen sink full of allegations. The most extreme version of every charge the administration had made about Hussein, the document had been written, Powell concluded, under the tutelage of Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who shared all of his boss's hard-line views and then some."
In blaming faulty intelligence for a misbegotten war, Bush is exposing himself to history's choice of branding him either a fool or a lethal liar.
He would have done much better by looking back to George Washington's farewell words as he left the presidency:
"The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."
Showing posts with label Ahmad Chalabi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ahmad Chalabi. Show all posts
Monday, December 01, 2008
Friday, June 06, 2008
Senate's Slow Learners Speak Out
A duped Bush Administration lied us into Iraq and, with the help of comparable Middle East con men, has been drumming up a war with Iran, the Senate Intelligence Committee disclosed yesterday in two reports, several years after anyone who has been paying attention knew all about it.
One, 170 pages long, accuses the President and Vice President Cheney of "repeatedly overstating the Iraqi threat in the emotional aftermath" of 9/11.
According to Committee Chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller, “The president and his advisers undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the war against Al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein.”
Much of it, as we have known for years, was based on information provided by Ahmad Chalabi, touted by Neo-Cons as the “George Washington of Iraq,” a fugitive from Jordan convicted of bank fraud, who fed the Pentagon intelligence on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda for which we paid $33 million over four years, none of which turned out to be true.
The second Senate report details the work of his Iranian counterpart. In December 2001, Douglas Feith sent two Pentagon employees to Rome meetings with Manucher Ghorbanifar, a middleman already dismissed by the CIA as untrustworthy, who outlined his plan for a change of government in Iran on a napkin.
The plan was pursued through at least May 2003, the report says, with requests for a $7 million loan, money for secret intelligence activity and an Iranian media outlet in Southern California in return for promised photos of suspected terrorists inside Iran and locations of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that purportedly had been moved there.
Ghorbanifar turned out to be as reliable as Chalabi, but Feith (described by Gen. Tommy Franks as "the dumbest effing guy on the planet") and other Pentagon Neo-Cons kept feeding his "intelligence" to the White House without telling the CIA, which might have refuted it.
It's good to have the Senate Intelligence Committee putting all this Keystone Kops stuff on the record, however belatedly, although only two Republican members signed on to the reports with the others deeming them a waste of time but failing to comment on the stupidity and duplicity that led to waste of lives and billions of dollars.
One, 170 pages long, accuses the President and Vice President Cheney of "repeatedly overstating the Iraqi threat in the emotional aftermath" of 9/11.
According to Committee Chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller, “The president and his advisers undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the war against Al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein.”
Much of it, as we have known for years, was based on information provided by Ahmad Chalabi, touted by Neo-Cons as the “George Washington of Iraq,” a fugitive from Jordan convicted of bank fraud, who fed the Pentagon intelligence on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda for which we paid $33 million over four years, none of which turned out to be true.
The second Senate report details the work of his Iranian counterpart. In December 2001, Douglas Feith sent two Pentagon employees to Rome meetings with Manucher Ghorbanifar, a middleman already dismissed by the CIA as untrustworthy, who outlined his plan for a change of government in Iran on a napkin.
The plan was pursued through at least May 2003, the report says, with requests for a $7 million loan, money for secret intelligence activity and an Iranian media outlet in Southern California in return for promised photos of suspected terrorists inside Iran and locations of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that purportedly had been moved there.
Ghorbanifar turned out to be as reliable as Chalabi, but Feith (described by Gen. Tommy Franks as "the dumbest effing guy on the planet") and other Pentagon Neo-Cons kept feeding his "intelligence" to the White House without telling the CIA, which might have refuted it.
It's good to have the Senate Intelligence Committee putting all this Keystone Kops stuff on the record, however belatedly, although only two Republican members signed on to the reports with the others deeming them a waste of time but failing to comment on the stupidity and duplicity that led to waste of lives and billions of dollars.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Stupidity Plus
Gen. Tommy Franks was off the mark when he called Douglas Feith the dumbest effing guy on the planet. On 60 Minutes tonight, Feith showed that stupidity alone is not enough to describe a clueless academic intoxicated by power and willing to stoop to intellectual dishonesty that would shame any used-car salesman
"What we did after 9/11," he told Steve Kroft, "was look broadly at the international terrorist network from which the next attack on the United States might come. And we did not focus narrowly only on the people who were specifically responsible for 9/11. Our main goal was preventing the next attack."
"So you're saying," an incredulous Kroft followed up by asking, "you didn't think it was that important to go after the people who were responsible for it--more important to go after people who weren't responsible for it?"
Feith, who helped cook the intelligence to justify the invasion, was pimping his doorstop book that blames everyone else, especially L. Paul Bremer, who ran the Iraq occupation for the first two years, for the ensuing fiasco.
If he had had his way, Feith claims, he would have turned the country over to con man Ahmad Chalabi, who fed him and his Neo-Con rubes $33 million of false information to lie us into the war.
Dumb isn't enough. Try shameless, arrogant and deceitful. There is at least one like him on most campuses. Just our luck that this specimen ended up in Rumsfeld's Defense Department.
"What we did after 9/11," he told Steve Kroft, "was look broadly at the international terrorist network from which the next attack on the United States might come. And we did not focus narrowly only on the people who were specifically responsible for 9/11. Our main goal was preventing the next attack."
"So you're saying," an incredulous Kroft followed up by asking, "you didn't think it was that important to go after the people who were responsible for it--more important to go after people who weren't responsible for it?"
Feith, who helped cook the intelligence to justify the invasion, was pimping his doorstop book that blames everyone else, especially L. Paul Bremer, who ran the Iraq occupation for the first two years, for the ensuing fiasco.
If he had had his way, Feith claims, he would have turned the country over to con man Ahmad Chalabi, who fed him and his Neo-Con rubes $33 million of false information to lie us into the war.
Dumb isn't enough. Try shameless, arrogant and deceitful. There is at least one like him on most campuses. Just our luck that this specimen ended up in Rumsfeld's Defense Department.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The Energizer Bunny of Baghdad Grifters
If you wanted to cram all the Bush Administration's folly, stupidity and inability to learn into the story of one person, it would be Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who milked the U.S. for millions, lied us into the war and now is a key figure in helping Prime Minister al Maliki and Gen. Petraeus put Iraq back together.
His new job is to press the central government to use gains from the Surge to deliver better electricity, health, education and security services to Baghdad neighborhoods.
Never mind that, as late as this summer, he was sabotaging U.S. plans for de-Bathification and spying for Iran, today Chalabi "is an important part of the process," according to Col. Steven Boylan, Petraeus' spokesman. "He has a lot of energy."
During the runup to the war, Chalabi was promoted by Neo-Cons as the “George Washington of Iraq.” A fugitive from Jordan after being convicted of bank fraud, he told the Pentagon all about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda for which we paid $33 million over four years. None of it turned out to be true.
Nonetheless, he stayed on the U.S. payroll until 2004. About that time, we learned Chalabi was selling information to Iran, letting them know that one of our sources of Iranian intelligence was a broken code used by their spy services.
Now he is devoting all that "energy" into helping us put the pieces of Iraq back together. If Petraeus and al Maliki have him over to lunch to discuss his progress, they had better count the silverware before he leaves.
His new job is to press the central government to use gains from the Surge to deliver better electricity, health, education and security services to Baghdad neighborhoods.
Never mind that, as late as this summer, he was sabotaging U.S. plans for de-Bathification and spying for Iran, today Chalabi "is an important part of the process," according to Col. Steven Boylan, Petraeus' spokesman. "He has a lot of energy."
During the runup to the war, Chalabi was promoted by Neo-Cons as the “George Washington of Iraq.” A fugitive from Jordan after being convicted of bank fraud, he told the Pentagon all about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda for which we paid $33 million over four years. None of it turned out to be true.
Nonetheless, he stayed on the U.S. payroll until 2004. About that time, we learned Chalabi was selling information to Iran, letting them know that one of our sources of Iranian intelligence was a broken code used by their spy services.
Now he is devoting all that "energy" into helping us put the pieces of Iraq back together. If Petraeus and al Maliki have him over to lunch to discuss his progress, they had better count the silverware before he leaves.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Chalabi: Our Iraqi Cockroach
Donald Rumsfeld is out of office, Paul Wolfowitz is in disgrace and Scooter Libby is on his way to jail. But the criminal who played them like a banjo to con the U. S. out of millions of dollars and into a calamitous war is still over there sabatoging efforts to get peace in Iraq and American troops out.
In a report on Iraqi failure to make progress toward sectarian peace, the New York Times yesterday singled out the Reconciliation and Accountability Law that would undo some of the damage of de-Bathification:
“Sunnis supported the overhaul, and Shiites and Kurds were expected to fall in line...But the law was stymied by Ahmad Chalabi, the former Pentagon protégé...Having just renovated a spacious office in the Green Zone, he has strongly opposed any effort to weaken his position or the country’s policy on former Baathists.”
Once promoted by Neo-Cons as the “George Washington of Iraq,” heading the de-Bathification Commission is Chalabi’s last remaining role in the government after being driven out over charges of fraud, theft and counterfeiting, and he is using it to rally Shiites against reconciliation.
Before the invasion, Chalabi, a fugitive from Jordan after being convicted of bank fraud, was providing the Pentagon with intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda for which we paid $33 million over four years. None of it turned out to be true.
Nonetheless, he stayed on the U.S. payroll until 2004 when, in an interview, he gloated about misleading us into Iraq: “We are heroes in error. As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important."
Soon after the money stopped and very likely before that, we learned that Chalabi was providing information to Iran, letting them know that one of our valuable sources of Iranian intelligence was a broken code used by their spy services.
All in all, our busy-as-a-bee Iraqi helper has turned out to be as useful and hardy as a cockroach.
In a report on Iraqi failure to make progress toward sectarian peace, the New York Times yesterday singled out the Reconciliation and Accountability Law that would undo some of the damage of de-Bathification:
“Sunnis supported the overhaul, and Shiites and Kurds were expected to fall in line...But the law was stymied by Ahmad Chalabi, the former Pentagon protégé...Having just renovated a spacious office in the Green Zone, he has strongly opposed any effort to weaken his position or the country’s policy on former Baathists.”
Once promoted by Neo-Cons as the “George Washington of Iraq,” heading the de-Bathification Commission is Chalabi’s last remaining role in the government after being driven out over charges of fraud, theft and counterfeiting, and he is using it to rally Shiites against reconciliation.
Before the invasion, Chalabi, a fugitive from Jordan after being convicted of bank fraud, was providing the Pentagon with intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda for which we paid $33 million over four years. None of it turned out to be true.
Nonetheless, he stayed on the U.S. payroll until 2004 when, in an interview, he gloated about misleading us into Iraq: “We are heroes in error. As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important."
Soon after the money stopped and very likely before that, we learned that Chalabi was providing information to Iran, letting them know that one of our valuable sources of Iranian intelligence was a broken code used by their spy services.
All in all, our busy-as-a-bee Iraqi helper has turned out to be as useful and hardy as a cockroach.
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