Thanks to Josh Mar­shall for spot­ting this, but Ahmad Cha­l­abi, head of the Iraqi National Con­gress, has basi­cally called the United States a sucker to its face.
“As far as we’re con­cerned we’ve been entirely suc­cess­ful,” Cha­l­abi is quoted as say­ing. “That tyrant Sad­dam is gone and the Amer­i­cans are in Bagh­dad. What was said before is not impor­tant.“
As Mar­shall points out, “What was said before” was the dis­cred­ited clap­trap about weapons of mass destruc­tion that was used as a pre­text for war. Much of the infor­ma­tion about Iraq’s alleged WMD pro­grams was fun­neled through the INC — infor­ma­tion that has been uni­ver­sally dis­cred­ited. “We are heroes in error,” said Cha­l­abi.
And now, he said, all that is “not impor­tant.“
Every Amer­i­can should be out­raged that Cha­l­abi would be so open about con­ning the United States into sac­ri­fic­ing 547 Amer­i­can lives (and count­ing) and spend­ing hun­dreds of bil­lions (and count­ing) on a war sold to the Amer­i­can peo­ple as a cake­walk, nec­es­sary and sup­ported by allies. It has been none of those things. Of course, America’s lead­ers were will­ingly conned, hop­ping into bed with Cha­l­abi and his cronies and whis­per­ing, “lie to me, baby.” The Bush Admin­is­tra­tion was com­plicit in the con — a co-conspirator, even — and that, too, is inex­cus­able.
It is these lies from Cha­l­abi and repeated by the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion that enrages those of us who opposed the war. What I don’t under­stand is why being lied to so baldly and badly doesn’t also send those who sup­ported the war into apoplexy. And why aren’t the war-supporters also enraged by the award­ing of $400 mil­lion in mil­i­tary con­tracts to a start-up com­pany with exten­sive busi­ness and fam­ily ties to Cha­l­abi?
(One $80-million con­tract went to Erin­sys Iraq, formed in Iraq imme­di­ately after the inva­sion and which is bankrolled by Nour USA Ltd., incor­po­rated in the United States in May 2003. A Cha­l­abi friend of busi­ness part­ner, Abul Huda Farouki, founded Nour. As News­day reports, “within days of the award last August, Nour became a joint ven­ture part­ner with Erinys and the con­tract was amended to include Nour.” Cha­l­abi per­son­ally received a $2-million fee for help­ing arrange the con­tract — a charge Cha­l­abi denies. And soon after the con­tract was awarded, Erin­sys Iraq started recruit­ing from the ranks of the Iraqi Free Forces, the INC’s feck­less mili­tia, lead­ing other Iraqi offi­cials to accuse Cha­l­abi of rais­ing a pri­vate army.)
That Cha­l­abi and oth­ers in the INC have a clear con­science should not come as a sur­prise. They aren’t Amer­i­cans and they don’t have to answer to the Amer­i­can peo­ple. Their inter­ests lay in remov­ing Sad­dam by any means nec­es­sary, even if it meant get­ting Amer­i­can sol­diers to do the dirty work of dying. I can even under­stand that, sort of; I fully expect nation­al­ists of any stripe to serve their coun­try. But I can’t accept that Iraqi “patriots” — as Cha­l­abi and his peo­ple no doubt call them­selves — should pocket Amer­i­can tax­pay­ers’ money while Amer­i­can sol­diers are dying. And I really can’t stom­ach those Amer­i­can “patri­ots” at 1600 Penn­syl­va­nia Ave. not only allow­ing that to hap­pen but actively col­lud­ing with a con­victed con-man. (By the way, the Pen­ta­gon is still pay­ing the INC for infor­ma­tion, hav­ing set aside between $3 mil­lion and $4 mil­lion for 2004.)
Make no mis­take: “what was said before” is very impor­tant. This is not an “oops, my bad” kind of thing. Infor­ma­tion fed by the INC to the Pen­ta­gon and repeated by the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion lead mil­lions of Amer­i­cans to believe that the safety of the nation was imper­iled. That the war was nec­es­sary, if noth­ing else. That the men and women who died did not do so in vain. To have Cha­l­abi dis­miss all that as “not impor­tant” is an insult of stag­ger­ing cal­lous­ness.
“The Bush admin­is­tra­tion is look­ing for a scape­goat,” Cha­l­abi said. “We’re ready to fall on our swords if he wants.” Don’t bother, Ahmad. More than 500 good men and women have already done so.