The Deep Game
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 1 June 2004
My article from last week, 'The Iranian Spy in the House of Bush,' which took a close look at
accusations leveled at the White House's favorite Iraqi Ahmad Chalabi, generated a number of
interesting responses from truthout readers. Pointedly, many refused to believe that stories suggesting
Chalabi was acting as an agent of Iran in the run-up to the Iraq invasion were anything more than
another Bush administration plot, the purpose of which was to gin up national support for an attack
against Iran.
The logic people offered to support
the idea that we are merely getting
jobbed by the Bush crew again is
straightforward, and not easily cast
aside. This administration has been,
since day one of their White House
occupation and even before, running
the game plan created by the Project
for the New American Century, or
PNAC. A central component of their
imperial designs is the need to
attack, invade and overthrow many, if
not all, Middle Eastern regimes, thus
bringing 'democracy' to the region.
Iran has been a central part of the
plan; it is difficult to miss the intent
behind the addition of that nation to
the 'Axis of Evil.' What better way to
create support for the next phase of the PNAC plan, goes the argument, than to devise a scenario by
which America was under an intelligence attack from Iran by way of Chalabi?
Chalabi is accused of passing highly sensitive signal intelligence to the Iranian government.
Specifically, he is accused of informing Iran that the United States had broken one of their most
important codes, and was basically able to read their mail. Clearly, there is more going on here than
immediately meets the eye. The argument that the White House has conjured these accusations
against Chalabi for their own military ends, however, fails in the face of several facts.
First of all, it has been known for years in intelligence circles that Ahmad Chalabi had strong
connections to Iran. He bragged to former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter in 1997 that he had
"tremendous connections with Iranian intelligence." Chalabi's aide, Aras Karim Habib, has also been a
known associate of Iranian intelligence for years. The recent raid on Chalabi's residence in Iraq was
aimed more at Habib than Chalabi. Habib escaped capture in the raid, and is believed to have fled to
Terhan. Seized in that raid, however, was the personal Koran of Chalabi. The book carried an
inscription from former Iranian ruler Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini himself. The inscription read, "To My
Son, Ahmad."
Evidence to support allegations that Chalabi has been acting in the interests of Iran goes back some
ten years. In 1994, Chalabi conjured an Iraqi defector named Khidir Hamza, who claimed to be a senior
member of Hussein's nuclear weapons team. According to Hamza, Iraq was very close to completing
the development of nuclear weapons. He was given to CIA agents, who subsequently decided he was
utterly without credibility. Imad Khadduri, the Iraqi nuclear physicist who was in charge of documenting
nuclear development stated flatly that Hamza, "Did not, even remotely, get involved in any scientific
research, except for journalistic articles, dealing with the fission bomb, its components or its effects."
Hamza, in attempting to establish his credibility, coughed up a 20-page document which had
apparently been developed by "Group 4," the Iraqi department responsible for designing nuclear
weaponry. At first, the report appeared to be damning evidence that Hussein was developing nuclear
weaponry in defiance of UN sanctions. After a further review by the International Atomic Energy
Agency, however, it was determined that the report was "not authentic."
In fact, analysis suggests this purported Iraqi nuclear document was, in fact, a manufactured fraud
created by Iranian intelligence. Several technical descriptions in the report used phrases that would
only be used by an Iranian. The use of the term 'dome,' 'Qubba' in Iranian, instead of 'hemisphere,'
which is 'Nisuf Kura' in Arabic, is particularly instructive. The usage of these words indicate the
document was originally written in Farsi by an Iranian scientist and then translated into Arabic.
Iran, apparently, was creating and disbursing false information intended to demonstrate that Hussein
was building nuclear weapons. This particular fraud, and Hamza himself, was used repeatedly to justify
the invasion of Iraq. It appears to have been a masterful intelligence operation out of Terhan, one that
came to the attention of American officials by way of Ahmad Chalabi. Thus, the new accusations that
Chalabi is a tool of Iran have a basis in past activities.
Why would a man with such connections to the anti-American regime in Iran be tolerated in the
highest circles of American government? The answer lies in the old Middle Eastern axiom, "The enemy
of my enemy is my friend." Chalabi's Iranian contacts were tolerated for so long because he was
working to the same end as many within the United States: the removal of Saddam Hussein from
power in Iraq.
Over time, Chalabi developed deep connections with CIA, and more importantly, with many who are
now power-brokers within the federal government. He became, most specifically, a prized ally of the
cabal of neoconservative hawks which includes Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz,
Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and William Luti. These men helped engineer legislation in Congress
which eventually funneled some $100 million into Chalabi's organization, the Iraqi National Congress. In
the run-up to the Iraq invasion, they created a special intelligence-manipulation bureau within the
Defense Department called the Office of Special Plans. It was here that accusations of vast Iraqi
stockpiles of WMDs, nuclear capabilities and al Qaeda connections were manufactured and disbursed.
Chalabi was the main source for these now-debunked accusations.
Chalabi had been chosen by Don Rumsfeld to be the next leader of Iraq, a position which suited
Chalabi's all-encompassing desire to come into possession of Iraq's vast oil revenues. He promised
Rumsfeld and the hawks that he would create a secular Shia government that would immediately make
peace with Israel. In other words, he told the PNAC crew exactly what they wanted to hear; a central
aspect of the PNAC plan to enact 'regime change' across the Middle East was, in their minds, about
the defense of Israel via the removal of threatening governments.
The wheels came off when none of Chalabi's information - about the weapons of mass destruction,
about the nuclear capabilities, about the al Qaeda connections, about the ease with which America
would occupy Iraq - turned out to be true. Chalabi felt the winds of his fortune changing and, still filled
with the desire to rule Iraq in the manner Rumsfeld had promised long ago, turned on his former friends.
He began fashioning himself as a martyr for the Iraqi people, began attacking America with the same
rhetoric used by Moqtada al Sadr and other radical clerics, in order to develop a power base with the
fundamentalist Shia community. Promises to make peace with Israel at some point were exposed as
the lies they were.
Thus, the White House approved the move to send soldiers into Chalabi's compound, to cut off his
fat monthly paychecks, and to distance him from the struggle for power in Iraq. According to
Newsweek, the final straw for Chalabi came when Bush and Cheney, "were briefed several weeks ago
about intelligence indicating that someone in Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress gave the Iranian
government 'extremely sensitive' and 'highly classified' info which could jeopardize U.S. intelligence
sources and even 'get people killed.' Intelligence sources say potential suspects for the leak include
Chalabi himself and his intelligence chief, Aras Habib." The data given to Iran, sensitive signal
intelligence that let Iran know we had broken some of their codes, is a damaging breach of national
security.
Is this Chalabi story a calculated ruse by the Bush administration to get them off the hook for this
Iraq disaster by scapegoating Chalabi? Given all the facts at hand, it seems highly unlikely.
It is difficult to imagine a worse situation for the Bush administration than what is currently unfolding.
Chalabi is completely the creation of those running the White House and the Pentagon. This is widely
known. If it is true that, as they were anointing Chalabi, he was funneling Iranian disinformation straight
to the highest levels of our government, who subsequently gave him intelligence data which he handed
over to Iran...if this is indeed true, it is a disaster of millennial proportions for the administration. It
reveals this White House to be saps, played like violins by Iran in a masterful intelligence operation that
removed a long-time enemy of Tehran while setting the stage for a fundamentalist Shia regime in Iraq
that would become a boon ally. How any aspect of this helps George W. Bush and his crew is hard to
see.
Is this Chalabi story a calculated ruse by the Bush administration to create an environment where
war against Iran would be acceptable? Clearly, they would like this conflict to become a reality. But
reality, in this matter, interferes. Consider a call for war in Iran. The immediate questions would be:
With whose army? Our troops in Iraq are badly stretched, and there aren't many
Reserves left. The UN won't have anything to do with another invasion. It is difficult
to believe that we would dare use Israel as a proxy force, because we'd lose every
other country in the region overnight, including Pakistan, which actually has
nuclear weapons.
With whose vote? Congresspeople have constituents, and the constituents are
badly disturbed by Iraq already. The war is a mess, and Congress has more than
enough political cover to say 'no' this time around. It isn't 2002 anymore.
With what money? Bush has spent hundreds of billions on Afghanistan and Iraq,
and has failed (quietly on the first and spectacularly on the second). Because of
Iraq, Congress can, and almost certainly will, say no to Iran spending.
With which Pentagon? If you believe Sid Blumenthal's report that the officer corps
in the Pentagon is on the edge of revolt because of what has taken place already,
it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which they would sit still for yet another
military action.
No, this is the real deal. The White House has been forced to turn on one of their most important
allies because his involvement with Iranian intelligence has been exposed. The American intelligence
community despised Chalabi because Bush and his people cut them out of the loop in favor of Chalabi,
and then turned around and blamed the intelligence community when Chalabi's data turned out to be
bogus.
Last summer, I wrote that one scapegoats the CIA at their mortal peril. This, a year later, appears to
be the final revenge of the intelligence community against an administration that insulted, suppressed
and blamed them for the failures of the neoconservative hawks. The fact that the White House provided
the hanging rope, in the guise of the badly compromised Ahmad Chalabi, only makes this dish all the
colder.
William Rivers Pitt is the senior editor and lead writer for t r u t h o u t. He is a New York Times and
international bestselling author of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to
Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.' |
