Our Man Chalabi is looking more like a con man

Robert Scheer of the Los Angeles Times commented on the closeness of the Bush administration to Ahmad Chalabi prior to his fall:

"In January, when President Bush delivered his State of the Union speechto Congress celebrating the success of the ]preemptive' war against Iraq,a controversial Iraqi exile named Ahmad Chalabi sat in a place of honorbehind First Lady Laura Bush.

"The symbolism was no accident: Despite being a fugitive from Jordan for aconviction in absentia on bank-fraud charges, this darling ofneoconservative hard-liners was the Pentagon's and White House's favored and well-paid adviser on all things Iraq -- including weapons of massdestruction, ties with Al-Qaida and the odds for a postinvasioninsurgency. As is now apparent, he and his cronies seemed to have liedspectacularly about it all."
Scheer observes Chalabi's close ties to the Iran political leadership and asks: "Was Our Man Chalabi a double agent working for the theocraticayatollahs when he helped lobby and lie the United States intooverthrowing Saddam, Iran's despotic but secular enemy?"

Scheer concludes the article by stating: "How ironic that a close alliancebetween Iraq and the fanatical ayatollahs of Iran is the most likely accomplishment of the U.S. invasion. That would lend credence to the claim in a revealing Newsweek cover story on Ahmad Chalabi's checkered past that'the Bushies were bamboozled by a Machiavellian con man for the ages.'"

For the full text of the article, see:http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4923134.html