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ttp://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1163522,00.html
Need to build a case for war? Step forward Mr Chalabi
If governments are going to rely on intelligence, its reliability is critical
Isabel Hilton
Saturday March 6, 2004
The Guardian
In the mayhem that followed the explosions in Baghdad and Karbala this week,
Ahmad Chalabi, an ever more powerful member of the Iraqi Governing Council and
a Pentagon favourite, was swiftly at the scene, behaving like a politician come
to offer sympathy. It was a shrewd piece of public relations - if you forget
the responsibility Chalabi bears for Iraq's present tragic condition. It was
Chalabi, more than any other individual, who helped persuade the US that
toppling Saddam Hussein would bring peace and democracy, and break the link
that he alleged existed between the Iraqi leader and al-Qaida.
The argument surrounding the decision to go to war in Iraq, Tony Blair said
yesterday, is not about trust or integrity but about judgment and intelligence.
That is also the case his critics make. In the approach to war, both the US and
the UK governments mobilised a mishmash of arguments in a campaign of
persuasion that was based not on rigorous analysis of intelligence but on the
selective use of data and informants. And in this sorry tale, no one played a
more critical role than the man many proclaim the most likely future leader of
Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi.
He has been working to take power in Iraq for a long time. The son of a wealthy
and influential family in Iraq that lost its place with the fall of the
monarchy, Chalabi has a long association with US intelligence. In the early
1990s, he was considered a serious asset by the CIA - but they soon found him
to be unreliable. By then, however, he had found other supporters, among them
the staff and advisers of one of the neo-cons' favourite thinktanks, the Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa) in Washington. In 1997, Jinsa
declared: "Jinsa has been working closely with Iraqi National Council leader Dr
Ahmad Chalabi to promote Saddam Hussein's removal from office and a
subsequently democratic future for Iraq."
Jinsa describes its mandate as two-fold: "To educate the American public about
the importance of an effective US defence capability...and to inform the
American defence and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel
can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and
the Middle East." Their interests, Chalabi persuaded them, coincided: Saddam,
the supporter of Palestinian suicide bombers, the strongest and most
troublesome leader in the Arab world and a menace to Israel, should be replaced
with a friendly government that would make peace with Israel and become the
US's best Arab friend.
The advocates of radical action in the Middle East came to power with Bush. The
next steps are now well documented. As Richard Perle once complained: "The CIA
has been engaged in a character assassination of Ahmad Chalabi for years now,
and it's a disgrace." To bypass such obstacles, an alternative intelligence
group - the Office of Special Plans - was created. But there was still a
shortage of evidence on two key points: that Saddam had WMD and that he had
links to al-Qaida. Step forward Ahmad Chalabi, whose INC benefited from nearly
$100m of US taxpayers money, despite Chalabi's conviction for a $300m bank
fraud in Jordan. Chalabi, who knows a market when he sees one, claimed his
sources inside and outside Iraq could supply the necessary evidence.
In 2001, Colin Powell declared: "He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any
significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction...our
policies have strengthened the security of the neighbours of Iraq." Tony Blair
told the Commons in November 2000 that, "We believe that the sanctions regime
has effectively contained Saddam Hussein." These assessments coincided with the
view of the intelligence services and the inspectors.
The alternative intelligence, marshalled to make the case for war, came
overwhelmingly from Chalabi's INC and their carefully coached "sources". Among
the INC allegations that have not been borne out were that Hussein had built
mobile biological weapons facilities, that he was rapidly rebuilding his
nuclear weapons programme and that he had trained Islamic warriors at a camp
south of Baghdad. Now defence officials acknowledge that the defectors' tales
were "shaky" at best.
On whose judgment was this shaky information included in official pre-war
intelligence estimates of Iraq's illicit weapons programmes and key statements
by US and UK politicians? On September 12 2002, for instance, claims by Iraqi
military officers supplied by the INC that Iraq had been training Arabs in
"hijacking planes and trains, planting explosives in cities, sabotage and
assassinations" were given uncritical prominence in a White House report. And
what is now described as an INC "fabrication" - that Iraq had mobile biological
warfare research facilities - was included in Powell's presentation to the UN
security council in February 2003.
To give wider credibility to this dubious narrative, Chalabi planted stories in
mainstream newspapers such as the New York Times, stories that were then quoted
as independent corroborative evidence by administration officials. The paper's
now much-criticised specialist on WMD, Judith Miller, has acknowledged her
10-year association with Chalabi.
Chalabi has admitted that the "evidence" he supplied was wrong. Unlike Blair,
he is no longer interested in pretending that there are any WMD in Iraq, but
nor is he repentant. Bush may lose the election and Blair is trapped in the
political minefield of the war's aftermath, but Chalabi is a clear winner. "We
are heroes in error," he told the Telegraph. Since Saddam was gone, "What was
said before is not important."
When the US flew Chalabi into Iraq by helicopter early in the war, along with
700 friends and supporters, he was not remotely electable. He did, though, look
like a man positioning himself to be at the centre of power. This week, Iraq's
provisional constitution was agreed. Given Bush's need to create a puppet
government in time for the US elections, power will now remain in the hands of
the governing council until such time as elections might be held - a promise
that recedes into the future with each terrorist outrage. The first drafts of
the Iraqi transitional administrative law were written by Chalabi's nephew. The
longer elections are postponed, the better for Chalabi, who is now in control
of Iraq's finances and of de-Ba'athification.
Perhaps his greatest coup was to gain possession of 25 tonnes of captured
Saddam documents that could prove useful in the future. Before the war, for
instance, the Jordanian foreign minister criticised Chalabi as untrustworthy.
Chalab
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