Reply #12: here's how and who dragged Chalabi into his willing plight [View All]

[UpInArms]

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact

excerpt:

There was a close personal bond, too, between Chalabi and Wolfowitz and Perle, dating back many years. Their relationship deepened after the Bush Administration took office, and Chalabi’s ties extended to others in the Administration, including Rumsfeld; Douglas Feith, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy; and I. Lewis Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. For years, Chalabi has had the support of prominent members of the American Enterprise Institute and other conservatives. Chalabi had some Democratic supporters, too, including James Woolsey, the former head of the C.I.A.

<snip>

With the Pentagon’s support, Chalabi’s group worked to put defectors with compelling stories in touch with reporters in the United States and Europe. The resulting articles had dramatic accounts of advances in weapons of mass destruction or told of ties to terrorist groups. In some cases, these stories were disputed in analyses by the C.I.A. Misstatements and inconsistencies in I.N.C. defector accounts were also discovered after the final series of U.N. weapons inspections, which ended a few days before the American assault. Dr. Glen Rangwala, a lecturer in political science at Cambridge University, compiled and examined the information that had been made public and concluded that the U.N. inspections had failed to find evidence to support the defectors’ claims.

...lots at the link...

and just an aside - did anyone else know that Judith Miller (of the NYT) co-authored a book with Laurie Mylroie?

Lauri Mylroie:

Her first book, Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, (co-authored with Judith Miller) was a number one New York Times bestseller, translated into 13 languages.

and this:

She is presently an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and publisher of Iraq News.

She is also the author of Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein.s Unfinished War Against America (American Enterprise Institute Press, 2000). Published in paperback, as The War Against America (HarperCollins, 2001), the book was hailed by Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz: "argues powerfully"; and Richard Perle, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, "splendid and wholly convincing". J. Gilmore Childers, lead prosecutor in the World Trade Center bombing trial, described it as "work the U.S. government should have done".