Chalabi A ‘Key Figure’ In Iranian Efforts To Scuttle U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement
Chalabi A ‘Key Figure’ In Iranian Efforts To Scuttle U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement
The United States and Iraq are currently engaged in “tense” negotiations regarding the future of the U.S. military presence in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year. Just yesterday, the Iraqi Cabinet proposed changes that the U.S. has yet to approve.
But now, CQ’s Jeff Stein reports that according to NBC investigative reporter Aram Roston, former Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi — the White House’s favorite Iraqi in the run-up to the Iraq war — has been helping the Iranians stand in the way of the agreement:
Roston calls Chalabi a “key figure” in Iranian efforts to scuttle the status-of-forces agreement that is under fierce negotiation between Baghdad and Washington.
“He is seen more and more by the U.S. as a foreign agent, an Iranian agent,” Roston told me by telephone from Mexico, where he is vacationing. What Chalabi says is “equated” with the Iranian position on the status-of-forces agreement, Roston said, which it opposes.
Chalabi told Iran’s state media last month that the U.S. wants secret military bases in Iraq and Stein notes that yesterday, a Shiite newspaper in Baghdad featured his opposition to the security agreement. In fact, last May, U.S. officials cut off all contact with Chalabi because of “unauthorized” contacts with the Iranian government.
But Chalabi’s renewed meddling puts a spotlight on the fact that he has palled around with some of John McCain’s most senior campaign advisers:
–Randy Scheunamann, top foreign policy adviser: As president of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq before the Iraq invasion, Schuenamann promoted Chalabi as the “new Iraqi Ataturk,” and his Iraqi National Congress (INC) group as a “government in exile.”
–Charlie Black, top political adviser: Black and his lobbying firm BKSH and Associates represented Chalabi and the INC, giving Chalabi access to high-powered officials in Washington.
Just last week, McCain told a local New Hampshire reporter that “we just achieved” a security agreement with the Iraqis, while at the same time, Chalabi — whom McCain once called “a patriot” with Iraq’s “best interests at heart” — was undermining the deal. Indeed, as Roston observed, Chalabi “is a genius at staying relevant.”
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29 Responses to “Chalabi A ‘Key Figure’ In Iranian Efforts To Scuttle U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement”
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WHY ISN'T THIS MAN SITTING IN A PRISON CELL?
Hasn't be been convicted in Jordan for financial fraud?
Why is he walking around, a free man, and STILL meddling in Iraq's future?
October 30th, 2008 at 10:14 amIt is amazing this guy is still walking around. He has wreaked almost as much havoc as Dick Cheney.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:17 amThe Bush Administration certainly gets the friends it deserves.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:20 amGet the f--- out of Iraq!
October 30th, 2008 at 10:24 amChalabi "is a genius at staying relevant”--relative to the morons cultivates, of course.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:25 amThe landslide of blunders from the Bush administration just keeps on coming. Its time for a landslide of good news at the polls.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:30 am#6, AG, I couldn't agree more! This is the proverbial tip of the Iceberg. I Pray Obam gets in and starts a full-blown investigation and prosecution of the Worst President Ever!
October 30th, 2008 at 10:34 amImpeach, while There's Still Time!
I want to know exactly how much $$$ Randy Scheunamann has secured for the great patriot Chalabi this time around?
Let's make sure we don't raise any of McCain's sordid associations in the coming days.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:37 amHmmm... he provided the "evidence" to Bush that ended up giving Iran their long sought victory over Iraq without them having to use any Iranian troops, was found to be sharing important US military information with Iran and only now they're starting to think he may be working with the Iranians? Or, have they yet to figure this out?
I can't tell. What I do know is that this guy had a seat next to Laura Bush at the State of the Union... amazing... Obama's "palling around" with whom, exactly?
October 30th, 2008 at 10:40 amThe lesson to be learned from all this?
If you turn your back on a slimeball like Chalabi, odds are he's going to find a way to stab you....
October 30th, 2008 at 10:42 amI presume "Big Media" will ignore this story and McCain's associates' ties with Chalabi/Ahmadinajad?
October 30th, 2008 at 10:44 amChalabi A ‘Key Figure’ In Iranian Efforts To Scuttle U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement
- - Poll: Nearly three-quarters of Texans erroneously believe that Chalabi is a friend of the U.S
October 30th, 2008 at 10:45 amNo doubt the msm will not cover this.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:46 amChalabi wants nothing less than to be the next ruler of Iraq.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:46 amThis is what his goal has always been. He has always had ties to Iran, and Cheney and his stooges were to blinded by their own greed for oil, money and power to see that.
I've always said that if he avoided assassination, Chalabi would be the next Iraqi strongman...
I stick by the prediction...
October 30th, 2008 at 10:47 amWhy are McIIIrd and his campaign staff pallin around with Iranian agents?
October 30th, 2008 at 10:48 amThe security of forces agreement will be another Bush-prepared offal-falafel, for the incoming president.
Chalabi should get Gitmo'ed in early February; do every one a favor. I wouldn't mind if he were tortured. Not one bit.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:49 amAhmed Chalabi, the White House's inside guy. He was involved in plans in 1992 to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime through his group The Iraqi National Congress (backed by Pappy Bush no doubt). In his zeal to overthrow Saddam he worked with the current Administration's propaganda effort in Iraq fomenting such lies and forgeries as the since dispelled Iraq-al queda connection, mobile biological labs and the infamous yellowcake uranium forgery. He has had business relationships with neocons in the Pentagon and boasts about his close relationship to Paul Wolfowitz. For several years up until late 2003 the State Dept gave 33 million dollars to Chalabi's INC. This snake oil salesman has been the main source of false info fed to the CIA and cherry picked by the WH to justify their war for oil. Removing Saddam helps Chalabi's political desires and clears the way for Chalabi (as oil minister) to pay back his Washington allies and their oil hungry corporate friends. Surprise, surprise! Chalabi supported John McCain back as far as his 2000 election attempt hoping the future president would be a valuable tool to help him achieve his personal goals. John McCain is the one who introduced Chalabi to the Washington neocon elite and McCain lobbied the WH to give Chalabi's INC big bucks:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=23c3a0ff-9d55-4d28-a94e-0b0e09e26505
This self-serving agent has been working Iraq, Iran and the US for years towards his own goal of power. If the media is soooooooo liberal, why haven't any of them raised the issue of McCain's long relationship with a charlatan/spy whose intentional misinformation gave George Bush all the grist he needed to pull off his Iraqi Oil War?
October 30th, 2008 at 10:54 amBoy, that picture. He looks like a diseased rat.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:54 amSuch dupes, W and his unitary executive was. Such dupes indeed. Rush to war on the lies of a double agent. How many times in history have great nations succumbed to such nonsense. And the GOP thinks it knows foreign policy and war. What a joke.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:55 amOnly low-life reich-wingers are stupid enough to embrace an (unlicensed) plumber who owes back taxes and complains about the possibility of making a quarter million dollars a year.
No wonder McGrampa is going to lose. What a train wreck.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:59 amEt tu, Ahmed???
October 30th, 2008 at 11:03 amNice job, Cheney. Your buddy Ahmed needs a hug.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:13 ambarfly Says:
Boy, that picture. He looks like a diseased rat.
No...I found myself looking into those eyes and thinking Great White Shark. No soul, but deadly all the same.
And I agree completely with Nevar and Tokin Librul at 14 and 15. I think that almost any American politician you would care to name is punching above his weight when playing Machiavelli with this guy. I think he could pick Nixon's pocket.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:13 amChalabi is the smartest of them all. He received 300,000 a month to help set up the lie about Iraq. He got caught and moved on to Iran with his fellow Shia members the Supreme Leader and President of Iran. Look Chalabia played the US players for the idiots they are. Listening to the White House who doesn't know the Shia from the Sunni or the Kurdes it was so easy. Lesson here is it's easy to fool dumb people, much harder to fool educated ones.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:53 amHOW DARE IRAQ PUT THEIR INTERESTS BEFORE THOSE OF THEIR COLONIAL MASTERS !!!!!!!!
USA!
October 30th, 2008 at 12:09 pmUSA!
USA!
He's a lovely looking gentleman ... someone you'd leave your kids with ...
October 30th, 2008 at 1:23 pm# 18 - A Patriot Acting Says
And you would be correct in saying Pappy Bush was involved with the INC - we always seem to create our own monsters! Notice the CIA involvement, who later renounced Chalibi.
INC was set up following the Persian Gulf War to coordinate the activities of various anti-Saddam groups. Then President George Bush signed a presidential finding directing the Central Intelligence Agency to create conditions for Hussein's removal in May 1991. Coordinating anti-Saddam groups was an important element of this strategy. The name INC was reportedly coined by public relations expert John Rendon (of the Rendon Group agency) and the group was funded by the United States. The group received millions in covert funding in the 1990s, and then about $8 million a year in overt funding after the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998. The deep involvement of the American CIA in the creation and early funding of the INC in its early years led many to consider the group a "creation of the CIA" rather than an organ of genuine Iraqi opposition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_National_Congress
October 30th, 2008 at 2:18 pmchalabi, a master con man and briber, convicted fraudster, and the guy who was integral to giving us the bad intelligence we wanted to hear to justify invading iraq. why is general betrayus palling around with this guy?
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/petraeuschalabi43.gif
to learn the art of "paying off people to do what you want"
general betrayus is paying iraqis to stop shooting at our soldiers, hes more like a mobster's accountant than a soldier.
October 30th, 2008 at 6:07 pm