{"id":1117,"date":"2004-05-25T15:21:35","date_gmt":"2004-05-25T22:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/?p=1117"},"modified":"2004-05-25T15:21:35","modified_gmt":"2004-05-25T22:21:35","slug":"chalabi-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2004\/05\/25\/chalabi-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Chalabi Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>I don\u2019t know why the Chalabi story has been under reported. True, it is a tad more complicated to unravel than the simpleton \u201cevildoers\u201d arguments we are all used to. But it\u2019s not that hard to explain:<\/p>\n

First, Chalabi was the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, a group that was set up with US assistance, didn’t have anything to do the actual government of Iraq, wasn’t a governing body, wasn’t even in Iraq, but sounded like it was all that. <\/p>\n

Contrast this with the Iraqi Governing Council that was also set up by the US, actually is forming the government in Iraq, is a governing body, actually is in Iraq, but is in no way to related Chalabi\u2019s Iraqi National Congress. Simple really.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where I think people get lost. When Chalabi was the head of the INC (not the IGC) he was convicted for embezzlement, fraud and currency-trading irregularities in Jordan. So of course when Chalabi passed \u201csecret\u201d information about WMDs in Iraq to the US of A the Bush administration listened and put him on the US payroll (not to be confused with the US payroll for the INC). <\/p>\n

So while on the US payroll, but no longer the head of the INC (not the IGC), Chalabi passed secret US information to Iran (not Iraq). Of course, the IGC had nothing to do with this at all. The US then kicked Chalabi off the payroll, raided his house in Iraq (not Iran), claimed the Iraqi police did it (not the US), and broke Chalabi\u2019s family photos which really ticked off Chalabi.<\/p>\n

So of course, seeing his family photos broken and all, Chalabi hits the TV talk show circuit, appearing on ABC, NBC an d CBS claiming that the CIA was behind all this because he was speaking out against the US of A and only wanted a free Iraq (not Iran). Of course, Russert on MTP told Chalabi that it was the DIA, no the CIA that outted him. Now we are told the FBI is investigating. <\/p>\n

So now all Americans have to do is differentiate between two similar sounding organizations with their origins in US policy: the INC that wasn\u2019t in Iraq and the IGC which is in Iraq, then figure out whether Chalabi is an embezzler in Jordan, a spy from Iraq or a spy from Iran or all of the above, then deduce which organization, the CIA, DIA or the FBI, he\u2019s under investigation of, and finally clarify which US payroll Chalabi was on when Bush started looking for Chalabi\u2019s WMD\u2019s in Iraq (not Iran) that proved Saddam was a threat to the US of A PDQ requiring our invasion of Iraq ASAP.<\/p>\n

Nope, I can\u2019t understand why this story is under reported.<\/i><\/p>\n

(In the comments of Joe Trippi’s stumbling post-Dean blog here<\/a>…<\/p>\n

Though, to be honest, I have the gut feeling the real<\/i> story is rather simple<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t know why the Chalabi story has been under reported. True, it is a tad more complicated to unravel than the simpleton \u201cevildoers\u201d arguments we are all used to. But it\u2019s not that hard to explain: First, Chalabi was the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, a group that was set up with US […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}