US begins to distance itself from Chalabi

[Barrett808]

WASHINGTON, OCTOBER 3: After supporting Ahmed Chalabi for years, the US has grown disenchanted and made a serious effort in the past two weeks to rein in the former Iraqi exile leader, pressing him to stop embarrassing President Bush with calls for a speedy handover of power in Baghdad, according to senior US officials.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice confronted Chalabi in a meeting last week in New York and again on Tuesday in Washington, on statements calling for greater Iraqi control over political power and economic reconstruction, sources said. ‘‘She was instructed to tell him to behave,’’ said an official.

The Bush administration’s pressure on Chalabi comes as he increasingly emerges on the world stage as the face of new Iraq, speaking at length before the UN General Assembly on Thursday on behalf of the 24-member Governing Council.

Chalabi in his debut speech on Thursday chastised nations that kept silent while former president Saddam Hussein abused ordinary citizens. ‘‘I stand in front of you today representing the voice of the Iraqi citizen who has long suffered from cruelty within and outside his homeland,’’ he said. Describing torture under Saddam, Chalabi said countries in the region and beyond had cooperated with those who abused the Iraqi citizen.

‘‘His brothers and friends in the region not only maintained silence and ignorance toward his catastrophe, they also criticised him and shamed him the day he dared raise his voice,’’ he said.

(more)

http://www.indian-express.com/full_story.php?content_id=32739

[Bozita]

1. Can we do it so that Judith Miller still gets to be an Iraqi princess?

She'd like that.

[Flubadubya]

13. Too funny...

[patdem]

2. Can we chalk this up as ANOTHER Pentagon failure of Rummy?

Have these people gotten ANYTHING RIGHT...No...because they are doing it for illegimate reasons, so they have to hire illegal people and those people are out for themselves...just as bush*co is out fot itself. Ah, unintended consequences....or the web of deceit is the perfect snare for you..you deceitful greedy war profiteers!

[E_Zapata]

3. Instructing him to "behave"?

Well, that just says it all.

But, I think this is bullshit. The Bushistas are just trying to blow smoke on the fact that they are installing a puppet govt.

If Chalabi were to turn on the US, he wouldn't do it this soon... not unless it was a ruse.

It's such a trip, I have no idea what to believe these days.

[Gin]

11. The rethuglican behavior is couched in terms like.....Mischief...and

Bad behavior...no matter what they do..it is dismissed as childish and innocent.

The words reflect their mentality and emotional maturity level.

[KharmaTrain]

4. Chalabi IS The Face of The Bush Invasion

As long as he remains on the "world stage" he will be viewed, especially by the international community, as the BushCo. stooge and only that. Here's a guy who fled Iraq when his elitist family was driven from the country by a popular uprising and just wanted to get back into power to grab back all the money, land and oil he/his family had prior to getting run out of the country (not unlike many of the Miami Cubans)

When I saw Chalabi in front of the U.N. I almost lost it. Too bad there wasn't a camera that I'm certain panned on an all-but-vacant chamber. He's viewed as illigitimate and has done precious little to assist in the post-invasion occupation. Au contrare he's made things worse.

When Rummy flew him into the South during the invasion without notifying State, that was a tip-off things were going to be a clusterfutz. He's also responsible for a lot of the bogus "intelligence" that the DOD used ahead of experienced (and probably now dead) CIA agents and other channels, that failed to acurately measure the sentiment of the people in Iraq towards the invasion...and especially toward Chalabi.

It's obvious this guy is a leech and sucking the blood out of the BushCo regime and they can't give anymore. As long as he parades around Iraq like some sort of Napoleon, the greater the resentment among the Iraqis and the rest of the world who see him nothing more than an International crook.

I'm hopeful Mr. Chalabi's future will be sharing living accomodations down the hall from Mr. Milosevic, Mr. Von Rumfeldt, Chenney, Wolfowitz and Pearle in the Hague.

[w13rd0]

5. Haha, this is too rich...

...hey, and this Bush boytoy didn't even have to go and invade Kuwait to be alienated from his "family away from home".

Bush to Chalabi: "Shut up boy, behave and be my bitch."

Chalabi to Bush: "I'm a born criminal mastermind, come over here and make me, prove to the world that once again you are a crappy judge of character by having backed me, or shut up and give me ULTIMATE POWER."

Bush to Chalabi: "I power share with no one, it's all Dickies, and he lets me play with it on Monday, and we're sharing ultimate power with so many of our friends, we can only fit you in to share ultimate power for 2.4 minutes ever other tuesday, or one month per year in a middle eastern country with US military oversight."

[underpants]

9. What ever happened to Honor among thieves?

:shrug:

It's a shame really they were such a cute couple. :loveya:

[fujiyama]

6. This aministration

can't even pick it's puppets very well! and sure as hell can't keep them in line.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm glad the administration is having trouble with Chalabi. Maybe even he's realized that he's been had by this lying cheating administration! That and he's obviously lookin out for his own interests (hmmm gaining power of the nation with the second largest oil reserves wouldn't be a bad deal)...So in a way both sides were had by each other....In that case, fuck them both! The criminal Chalabi and the criminal administration.

[Oilwellian]

7. It was Chalabi's intelligence info..

that circumvented our traditional intelligence apparatus. His behavior will just make the tying in of Iraqgate and Treasongate all the more juicy.

[IndianaGreen]

8. Chalabi is on his way to joining Manuel Noriega

Noriega was loved by the US as long as he was a willing puppet of the CIA, the moment that Noriega decided to go his own way he became a "drug peddler" and "criminal."

[Chico Man]

10. Another Frankenstein in the making

A la Saddam and Bin Laden.

We'll be after this guy in 15 years for sure.

[teryang]

12. Distancing themselves?

Chalabi has been appearing with Repuke congressional leadership drumming up support for the 87 billion dollar rip off of the American Taxpayer. What a crock of shit this is.

[Rose Siding]

17. I'm not buying it

If Chalabi remains a "covert" puppet, the US will look oh-so-grand making diplomatic concessions to this "Iraqi". Rummy still gets what he wants while looking a little like he didn't.

[0007]

14. Condoleezza Rice confronted Chalabi

and told him to behave?

The U.S. put Saddam in power and has played along with Chalabi. While we looked the other way. Both men are exactly out of the same mold. God are we a two faced nation.

[KharmaTrain]

15. When Chalabi Was At The U.N.

I couldn't help but think of the reaction the U.S. had in the past to appearances by folks like Arafat, Castro and other dictators who weren't our dictators. I used to think this nation stood for the values of a true representative government, but this regime has shot that notion to hell for me.

Seeing Chalabi in front of the U.N. how many of the member nations consider him legitimate? It'd be like having one the "head" of Transkeii or one of the former South African white-made "countries" do the same thing...or for that matter any of the old Soviet republics like the Ukraine and Bylorussia...now Belarus that had been members since 1945.

Chalabi had no legitimacy to any leadership and has become a liability to this regime. And as standard procedure, when someone doesn't serve the PNAC agenda, you're discarded.

[bigtree]

16. Chalabi nepotism

Wednesday September 24, 2003 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1048205,00.html
Chalabi's nephew is trying to nose in on the consulting money trough, aided by Douglas Feith's Washington law firm of Feith & Zell, P.C. website http://www.iraqlawfirm.com/

Feith was a Pentagon official in the Reagan administration and now undersecretary of defense for policy and head of reconstruction matters in Iraq.