WHO IS SERVED?:

U.S. Only Wounded Itself When It Betrayed Chalabi (Danielle Pletka, June 4, 2004, LA Times)

Once, in the early 1990s, Chalabi was a trusted associate of the Central Intelligence Agency, the key player in a unsuccessful coup to overthrow Saddam Hussein and, as head of the Iraqi National Congress, one of the few effective Iraqi politicians in exile. Later, abandoned by the CIA, Chalabi was supported, albeit reluctantly, by the State Department.
Today, however, Chalabi is being accused by unnamed administration officials of a laundry list of treachery, including revealing classified information to the government of Iran. From CIA co-conspirator to traitor in a few short years appears to be a stunning fall from grace. But, in this case, appearances are deceiving. The truth is that those who are now accusing him are the same people who have viewed him as an enemy for many years. They are the people inside our government — at State, in the CIA and elsewhere — who oppose the administration's policy in Iraq and who see Chalabi as its personification.

Chalabi himself never changed. He was very consistent: He wanted the overthrow of Hussein. [...]

The latest charges have been dizzying. The Iraqi National Congress has been accused of providing bad intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. INC officials in Iraq are being investigated for a variety of crimes. Chalabi himself, according to unnamed sources, was supposedly obstructing an investigation of the United Nations oil-for-food program. And now he is accused of spying for Iran. [...]

Of all the charges, passing secrets to Iran is the most serious. It is gravest, obviously, for the American who supposedly told Chalabi that we had broken Iranian codes. That person is governed by U.S. laws, and if he exists, he should be prosecuted.

Chalabi, on the other hand, is a foreigner and owes us no fealty (although it is worth noting that he denies the charges). That he has been close to the Iranians has been well known for years; the United States even paid for his offices in Tehran. So there's no great surprise there.

But when you think about it, why would he pass secrets to Iranian intelligence in Baghdad? Why would that station chief then use the very codes Chalabi told him were compromised to pass the news back home? And why would we openly break with Chalabi unless we wished to confirm to the Iranians that the codes had indeed been compromised? It makes no sense.

In the end, little of this storm over Chalabi will matter to the man himself. As a target of American harassment, he has renewed his credibility in the eyes of his people.

Indeed, it's only when you step back from the controversy for a moment and look at its most likely result--distancing Chalabi from the Americans and making him more acceptable to Iraqis--that it makes any sense.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 9, 2004 2:25 PM