GodfreyDaniel storage basement

[Ace Hanlon]

Did Iran dupe neo-cons?

From Juan Cole blog today.



Actually, the US Government released a document showing that Iraqi intelligence became positively alarmed about reports that al-Qaeda might be in Iraq, and put out an APB on them! (The URL for that document set at Ft. Leavenworth no longer works; I'd appreciate it if any reader has an update).

Senator Pat Roberts, chair of the intelligence committee, actually went so far as to say of his own committee's report that there was no evidence that Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress knowingly provided false information to the US government, nor that it was acted on. Roberts' philosophy seems to be that you might as well deny it all, there is no percentage in admitting the truth.

Intriguingly, the report says that the Defense Intelligence Agency warned the Pentagon off the INC on the grounds that it had been penetrated by a foreign intelligence agency, which might be using it to play the US.

The foreign country that had penetrated Chalabi's group? Iran.

What is really delicious is that it suggests that the influential Neoconservatives at the American Enterprise Institute who ceaselessly promoted Chalabi, like Richard Perle, David Rhode, and Michael Rubin, were duped by Tehran into doing its bidding.