Friday, May 21, 2004
Ahmad Chalabi Raid
The raid on the offices and house of Ahmad Chalabi is curious and confusing to all concerned. Chalabi has had the strongest of supporters and detractors from the first time his name surfaced as one of the leaders in the attack Iraq brigade. He seems to still have support in some quarters — one general says Chalabi's people have regularly provided useful tactical intelligence. Recently Chalabi had seemed to turn against American support for a plan to transfer power to a new interim government rather than the one the Bremer established and of which he is a member. He claims his open criticism of the plan is the reason for the raid. I do not know. One could be paranoid and believe it is all a devious plot engineered by Chalabi himself to make him more acceptable to Iraqis as power in the country drifts away from the Americans.
Turning back to the charges, it is true that Chalabi has been developing links with the Iranians (he is a secular shi'a), links that might actually make the preservation of order easier in the unstable next months. He is accused of getting so close that he passed classified information to them, and perhaps he did. His people are also accused of economic crimes, and perhaps this is enough of an explanation. Unfortunately, whatever the explanation, it does not look good to the world, Iraqis, or the American Congress to have a person who has been supported this long, and who many see as one of the main movers of the war agenda, be now attacked and humiliated by the very people who were paying his bills up until a few days ago. Unless they accept the devious explanation, most observers will fall back on the simple explanation that U.S. reliance on, and support of, Chalabi was a major mistake. In other words, in this too our government was simply incompetent.
The raid on the offices and house of Ahmad Chalabi is curious and confusing to all concerned. Chalabi has had the strongest of supporters and detractors from the first time his name surfaced as one of the leaders in the attack Iraq brigade. He seems to still have support in some quarters — one general says Chalabi's people have regularly provided useful tactical intelligence. Recently Chalabi had seemed to turn against American support for a plan to transfer power to a new interim government rather than the one the Bremer established and of which he is a member. He claims his open criticism of the plan is the reason for the raid. I do not know. One could be paranoid and believe it is all a devious plot engineered by Chalabi himself to make him more acceptable to Iraqis as power in the country drifts away from the Americans.
Turning back to the charges, it is true that Chalabi has been developing links with the Iranians (he is a secular shi'a), links that might actually make the preservation of order easier in the unstable next months. He is accused of getting so close that he passed classified information to them, and perhaps he did. His people are also accused of economic crimes, and perhaps this is enough of an explanation. Unfortunately, whatever the explanation, it does not look good to the world, Iraqis, or the American Congress to have a person who has been supported this long, and who many see as one of the main movers of the war agenda, be now attacked and humiliated by the very people who were paying his bills up until a few days ago. Unless they accept the devious explanation, most observers will fall back on the simple explanation that U.S. reliance on, and support of, Chalabi was a major mistake. In other words, in this too our government was simply incompetent.
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