speaking of having a hard time focusing on work, i've been facinated by this raid on chalabi's house.
chalabi was the neo-con's favorite to lead iraq after saddam fell. he fled saddam's regime several decades ago. originally to jordan, until he was charged with embezzlement and he fled to the u.s. (he was convicted in absentia). in the u.s. he campaigned for saddam's overthrow and is probably responsible for feeding much of the dubious intelligence to the bush administration about saddam's weapons programs, most of which chalabi himself seems to have fabricated to get the u.s. to invade. in return, the pentagon paid $335,000 per month to his organization, the iraqi national congress (most of the cash probably went directly into chalabi's pocket). the payments continued for more than a year after saddam's fall, the pentagon finally cut him off only last week
after saddam fell, many neo-cons pushed to have chalabi immediately installed as leader of the country. the u.s. military flew him into the country, along with his private militia, only to find that he had no support among the iraqi people. meanwhile, chalabi's militia terrorized and stole cars from iraqi citizens and chalabi moved into one of saddam's palaces. the bush administration could care less, in fact, they still pushed his case relentlessly. they even put him on the interim governing council and his brother in charge of prosecution of the former leaders of the baathist regime.
but then a few weeks ago he fell from grace. too many trails of bad intelligence led to him. plus there was the embarassing detail that while the u.s. was giving ultimatums to sadr's "illegal" militia, chalabi's militia seemed to have the american stamp of approval. a few neo-cons still pushed for chalabi to be set up as the iraqi leader, but their numbers diminished as it became clearer and clearer that he could not be elected dog-catcher in iraq if it was ever put to a vote. and simply putting such an unpopular figure in charge would fly in the face of the image of a new democratic iraq.
about a week ago, i thought about posting something about this with the question "i wonder if chalabi will go quietly?" after all, it was becoming clearer and clearer that chalabi's american sponsors were going to ditch him and they guy seems to have a big sense of entitlement and his own private militia. but like many of the things i think about posting, i never got around to it. so this almost-after-the-fact-i-told-you-so post will have to do.
actually, it's still not clear if chalabi will turn against u.s. forces. but it's facinating to see this dramatic fall from grace for what used to be the poster-child of the neo-con's vision of iraq.
UPDATE: juan cole says chalabi has been suspended from the IGC.
...and yes, the document review is going well. thank you for asking.
