It’s ironic that only now, eight and a
half years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as the last American troops pull
out, that we finally get a book dissecting the machinations of one of the men
most responsible for that catastrophe: Ahmed Chalabi, the brilliant,
treacherous, endlessly scheming Iraqi refugee who, from 1991 to 2004, played a
singular role in contorting U.S. policy towards Iraq.
The book, “Arrows of the Night,”
(Doubleday) written by “60 Minutes” producer, Richard Bonin, is based on lengthy
and remarkably frank interviews with Chalabi as well as scores of others who
dealt with him over the years. The result is a chilling chronicle of how this
charismatic and totally amoral Iraqi exile, without any power base among his
own people, was, at various times, able to con everyone from the New York
Times, to the CIA, to the U.S. Defense Department, to Dick Cheney-- even Iran’s
intelligence chiefs--in his single-minded determination to overthrow Saddam
Hussein and take power himself.
It is a also an alarming tale of how a
feckless American President, George W. Bush, buffeted by conflicting counsels
of feuding advisors, stumbled into one of the most disastrous military quagmires
in America’s history.
Chalabi was born to an Iraqi family of
immense wealth and influence, remarkable because they were Shiites in a country
dominated by a Sunni minority. In 1958 ,however. the family was forced to flee
Iraq after a military coup. Almost
from the beginning, the young exile was obsessed with overthrowing the regime
in Baghdad which, after 1968, was led by Saddam Hussein.
Chalabi studied first in London, then at
the University of Chicago and MIT. He was an outstanding mathematician, but with
a con man’s soul. At age 32 he founded what would quickly become Jordan’s
second largest bank. But his triumph was brief: Chalabi was obliged to flee that
country as well when he was charged –and then convicted—of fraud and
embezzlement of more than a hundred million dollars.
The contretemps might have ended the
career of lesser men, but not Ahmed Chalabi. Still determined to topple Saddam,
he came to the United States, convinced that the path to Baghdad led through
Washington, D.C.
Lacking any real backing from Iraqis, by
his own brilliance and conniving, Chalabi created a support network among
influential Americans, many of them prominent neo-conservatives. They saw in
the articulate Iraqi an ingenious strategist whose vision of sparking an
uprising in Iraq with U.S. help, coincided with their own view: it was time for
America to step forward and wield its vast power to promote democracy and other
vital U.S. interests abroad. (Key among such interests were ensuring access to
Middle Eastern oil and the survival of Israel.) Chalabi and his new allies set
out to transform Iraq and Saddam into a hot-button U.S. political issue.
In 1991, George H.W. Bush agreed to
clandestinely fund an Iraqi exile group and Chalabi was picked to head the
operation, receiving a stipend of $340,000 per month. Actually, as the
administration and the CIA saw it, that move was just window dressing to make
it appear as if the U.S. was really doing something to overthrow Saddam.
In fact, they had no intention of
getting the U.S. involved militarily. Nor did they want a popular uprising that
could have brought the majority Shiites to power, and increase the influence of
neighboring Iran. What they wanted was to topple Saddam by a military coup and
replace him with a more tractable government of Sunni generals.
But Ahmed Chalabi had different ideas.
Rather than the CIA using him, he would use them. He deployed his secret U.S.
backing to get himself elected leader of the exile group, the Iraqi National
Congress, then started dictating policy to an outraged CIA. His plan, to take
power himself after a popular uprising, protected by an American military
umbrella.
Incredibly, at the same time he was
pocketing Washington’s money, Chalabi was also dickering with Iran. He
calculated that to take power in Baghdad, he would also have to win the backing
of America’s prime foe in the region, the mullahs in Tehran. And, for a while,
he did. In fact, in 1995, by his cunning and deceit, Chalabi almost succeeded
in provoking a U.S. military intervention in Iraq and a possible war between
Iraq and its neighbors.
When outraged government officials tried
to rein him in, Chalabi turned to his powerful Washington backers. Over the
years, they would include such figures as Steve Solarz, John Murphy, Douglas
Feith, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney. Shrewd,
supposedly worldly men with brilliant Washington resumes, they were dazzled by
Chalabi: he was an Iraqi De Gaulle, a George Washington. They ridiculed CIA and
State Department experts and rode roughshod over their warnings.
In 2001, George W. Bush came to power
and Chalabi’s lobby grew more shrill. To build their case to invade Iraq, the
White House turned to Chalabi’s INC for hard evidence of Saddam’s WMD’s and his
links with Al Qaeda. And, presto, Chalabi produced informants with precisely
the tales required. After the invasion, when it was revealed that those
informants were lying, Chalabi was unabashed.
Similarly, when Washington asked Chalabi
to gather his much-vaunted thousand-man Iraqi army, only a motley 600 showed
up, many of them Iranian-speaking with no knowledge of Arabic. Turned out they
were mercenaries hired at $5000 a piece—on America’s tab.
Still Chalabi’s Washington fans were
unfazed. When the U.S. occupied Iraq, the exile leader was appointed to key
positions in the interim government—which he then milked to build his own political
base as well as a huge personal fortune.
And all the while, he continued his
double-dealing with Iran; for instance, turning over to them sensitive files
seized from Saddam’s secret police. Finally, in March 2004, outraged American
intelligence agents discovered that Chalabi had informed the Iranians that the
U.S. was deciphering Iran’s most sensitive communications.
Incredibly, Chalabi still had his
protectors in Washington. President Bush only learned of the Iraqi’s treachery
when he read about it in the May 10, 2004 edition of Newsweek. He also learned
of Chalabi’s $340,000 monthly stipend—which was still continuing.
According to Bonin’s account, at a
meeting of his National Security Council, Bush asked Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, “Who does Chalabi work for? Who pays him?” Rumsfeld
claimed not to know, though Chalabi’s payments were coming from the
Pentagon’s own intelligence agency.
“If we’re paying this guy and he’s giving
away our secrets” Bush ordered. “it needs to stop. Condi look into it.”
But even the President’s National
Security Advisor, Condelezza Rice, was no match for Chalabi’s Pentagon
supporters: it took two more NSC meetings, the President growing ever more irate,
before, on May 19, Paul Wolfowitz announced that the INC stipend was ending.
Not because of Chalabi’s treachery, but because it wasn’t “appropriate” for the
U.S. to be funding an Iraq political party.
Ironically, it was the Iranians who finally
thwarted Chalabi’s ambitions. In February, 2005 the Iranian ambassador to Iraq
bluntly ordered Chalabi to drop out of the race for prime minister.
Tehran would never accept a secular Shiite like Chalabi running Iraq. Chalabi
might defy the Americans, but never the Iranians. “He would be dead in two
days, and he knew it,” a Chalabi aide later told Bonin.
In 2007, however, Chalabi would again
profit from U.S. backing. With the support of U.S. General David Petraeus,
Chalabi was appointed by prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to another key post,
charged with restoring Baghdad’s shattered infra-structure.
True to form, within a few months Chalabi
betrayed Maliki and the Americans by siding with Iranian-backed Shiite radical
Moqtada-al-Sadr, whose goal was to drive the Americans from Iraq.
Today, according to Bonin, Chalabi
remains ensconced in his sprawling Baghdad compound, surrounded by a small army
of security guards, and the enormous wealth his government positions enabled
him to amass. But he’s no longer a contender to lead post-Saddam Iraq. History,
says Bonin, has finally passed him by.
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America’s military adventure in Iraq is,
hopefully, ended. But there’s still much to be learned from this case study of
national hubris--how the policies of the most powerful country on the planet
were shaped by a group of arrogant players with insiders’ cunning and their
own, often shadowy, agendas.
It’s a lesson particularly relevant
today, as the political climate heats up and another American president ratchets
up tensions with Iran, while simultaneous dispatching U.S. troops to the
Pacific in a new but vague and open-ended challenge.
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