[Article]Iran used Chalabi to dupe U.S., report says

Scruff

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001935950_iranchalabi22.html

"Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program (ICP) information to provoke the United Sates into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source who was briefed on the conclusions of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

Interesting read. While i beleive that whether its true or not, the American administration was looking for any old excuse to invade iraq...so it actually suited them that they got the info on WMD's they wanted. If it is true though ye have to take yer hat off to Iranian Intelligence for theit part.

The Corinthian

I really don’t see it as terribly likely. Saddam had been effectively contained since the end of the first Gulf War and was no longer a serious military threat to Iran. Actually since the first Gulf War, relations between the two nations had improved. And for Iran to encourage the US to invade would have meant that they wanted to have over a hundred thousand heavily armed Americans on their doorstep - not bloody likely.

Additionally, Chalabi, a while being a Shiite, is also secular and better known for his opportunism and dubious background (he was been convicted for embezzlement, fraud and currency-trading irregularities in Jordan). There is no major idological imperative for him to favour Iraq.

It is more likely, given the evidence and personalities, that Chalabi gave false information to encourage the invasion, that the US administration was probably aware of these inaccuracies or at least was not to bothered to debunk them given that the case for war was more induced rather than deduced. While he may have had some channels to Iran prior to the invasion, these would have been limited, given Iran’s relationship with the US and any meaningful dialogue took place in Iraq, after the invasion, as he began to realize that he had no local support base and had to muster one up quickly.

It would make sense for a self-styled leader of Iraq to have some form of dialogue with Iran, after all, they’re neighbouring countries. It also makes sense for an opportunist, as Chalabi appears to be, to hedge his bets. As such his present fall from grace is probably as a result of a split between him and the US on the future of Iraq (and the INC) as well as the growing need for pre-war intellignece scapegoats.

My 2 cent.

arcadegame2004

On your remarks about Chalabi, Corinthian, I would point out that Jordan may have had ulterior motives in finding him guilty of embezzlement, namely the fact that he was an Iraqi dissident and that Jordan was opposed to the first Gulf War, unlike almost all of the other Arab states. Jordan may thus have wanted to punish an enemy of Saddam to satisfy Jordanian public opinion which was pro-Saddam.

The Corinthian

Jordan may have had ulterior motives in finding him guilty of embezzlement, but most independent reports seem to indicate that he actually was guilty of embezzlement - the central bank of Jordan didn’t pump $164 million into the Petra Bank to keep it afloat just for fun. You also cannot ignore that there are also other fraud related warrants out for him, namely in Lebanon, in connection to the collapse of two other banks.

So while such ulterior motives may be the truth behind these charges and accusations, the reality is that they are supported by numerous disparate and often unrelated sources, making it unlikely that these motives are the true motivation.