http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/19/wirq19.xml Chalabi stands by faulty intelligence that toppled Saddam's regime By Jack Fairweather in Baghdad and Anton La Guardia (Filed: 19/02/2004) An Iraqi leader accused of feeding faulty pre-war intelligence to Washington said yesterday his information about Saddam Hussein's weapons, even if discredited, had achieved the aim of persuading America to topple the dictator. Ahmad Chalabi and his London-based exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, for years provided a conduit for Iraqi defectors who were debriefed by US intelligence agents. But many American officials now blame Mr Chalabi for providing intelligence that turned out to be false or wild exaggerations about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Ahmad Chalabi: 'we've been entirely successful' Mr Chalabi, by far the most effective anti-Saddam lobbyist in Washington, shrugged off charges that he had deliberately misled US intelligence. "We are heroes in error," he told the Telegraph in Baghdad. "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. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We're ready to fall on our swords if he wants." . . . http://www.newsday.com/news/nationw...5,0,735950.story?coll=ny-uspolitics-headlines Start-up Company With Connections U.S. gives $400M in work to contractor with ties to Pentagon favorite on Iraqi Governing Council By Knut Royce WASHINGTON BUREAU; Tom Frank contributed to this article from Baghdad. February 15, 2004 Washington - U.S. authorities in Iraq have awarded more than $400 million in contracts to a start-up company that has extensive family and, according to court documents, business ties to Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon favorite on the Iraqi Governing Council. The most recent contract, for $327 million to supply equipment for the Iraqi Armed Forces, was awarded last month and drew an immediate challenge from a losing contester, who said the winning bid was so low that it questions the "credibility" of that bid. But it is an $80-million contract, awarded by the Coalition Provisional Authority last summer to provide security for Iraq's vital oil infrastructure, that has become a controversial lightning rod within the Iraqi Provisional Government and the security industry. . . . To top it off, he not only gets 400 million dollars in Iraq contracts, we are paying him *this* year for more bad intelligence with a no bid system. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2414529 Feb. 21, 2004, 10:19PM U.S. still paying source of tainted intelligence By JONATHAN S. LANDAY Knight-Ridder Tribune News WASHINGTON -- The Department of Defense is continuing to pay millions of dollars for information from the former Iraqi opposition group that produced some of the exaggerated and fabricated intelligence President Bush used to argue his case for war. The Pentagon has set aside between $3 million and $4 million this year for the Information Collection Program of the Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmed Chalabi, said two senior U.S. officials and a U.S. defense official. They spoke on condition of anonymity because intelligence programs are classified. The continuing support for the Congress comes amid seven separate investigations into prewar intelligence that Iraq was hiding illicit weapons and had links to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. A probe by the Senate Intelligence Committee is now examining the Iraqi Congress' role. The decision not to shut off funding for the information-gathering effort could become another liability for Bush as the presidential campaign heats up and suggests that some within the administration are intent on securing a key role for Chalabi in Iraq's political future. Chalabi, who built close ties to officials in Vice President Dick Cheney's office and among top Pentagon officials, is on the Iraqi Governing Council, a body of 25 Iraqis installed by the United States to help administer the country following the ouster of Saddam Hussein last April. The Information Collection Program started in 2001 and was "designed to collect, analyze and disseminate information" from inside Iraq, according to a letter the group sent in June 2002 to the staff of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Some of the information alleged that Saddam was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program, which was destroyed by U.N. inspectors after the 1991 Gulf War, and was stockpiling banned chemical and biological weapons, according to the letter. The letter, a copy of which was obtained by Knight Ridder, said the information went directly to "U.S. government recipients" who included William Luti, a senior official in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office, and John Hannah, a top national security aide to Cheney. The letter appeared to contradict denials made last year by top Pentagon officials that they were receiving intelligence that bypassed established channels and vetting procedures. . . .
This absolutely reeks to high heaven. This guy freely admits he mislead us, the Administration knows that he did, they ignored our own intelligence agencies to buy into this guy because he told them what they wanted to hear... And we are STILL paying them?? Not only paying them for their admitted bogus intelligence, but giving them huge contracts as well? Come on, Bush supporters, I want to hear a justification for this. I want to hear the spin. Or is this FINALLY enough to make you see that we have all been taken for a ride... not only by Chalabi and his people, but by the Administration. ****ing unbelievable. Just when you think you've heard it all.
The Chalabi piece is from last week Thursday (19/02). Has the mainstream media in the US even bothered to follow up or even mention it?
Hey, we've got gay marriage and now the amendment banning it to fill our TV screens and newspapers. How convenient!
Sure as heck sucks that he did that, but I don't disagree with him that the ends justified the means. DD
So we're back to the perennial question with Dubya. Did Bush push Chalabi's lies because Bush is stupid or because he is dishonest.
Neither...As you know, you base your actions on the information you know as of today...I find it very hard to believe we anything and everything to go to war...You have to believe the intelligence you get and make a decision... BTW, the world will be a better place with SH...period...
And yet another option would be Bush is so out of touch with reality he thinks it's the truth so he isn't technically lying, which is more likely than what you've written, read Soldier for the Truth. It's in the Village Voice and LA Weekly.
Bush was presented with intel saying that Iraq may not have the WMD's he was talking about, and that they were not a threat. Yet he ignored that intel. It's not that Bush was only given intel that said Iraq had WMD and were a threat. He was given intel regarding the lack of varioius WMD programs but ignored those.
You've made a mistake. Those are not mutually exclusive qualities. Thanks for correcting my error. You are right and I was wrong.
VIrtually Every single murderous tyrant in history has been an end justifies means type of leader. Right down the list: Hitler, Stalin, etc. Check it out. Then, of course, the E.J.T.M. types from other people will do whatever they can to stop other peoples' means, and so on, and so on, and so on...
Face it, those of us who have actually followed this whole deal with anything close to a skeptical eye knew this stuff already. Chalabi's admissions, while unusually honest and somewhat surprising, doesn't really change anything. The most interesting thing I think he's said is that the June 30 deadline for turnover of authority in Iraq was set not just with the election in mind, but so that Bush could "visit" Iraq in October to "honor" the Iraqi Congress. The whole Iraq thing just reeks from beginning to now (will it ever end?) and has to be classified as one of the darkest and most cynical undertakings in US History.
