The New Effort Against Chalabi

New York Sun ^ | January 24, 2005 | New York Sun Staff

[Piranha]

The recent threats and accusations that the defense minister in Iraq, Hazem Shaalan, has made against Ahmad Chalabi illustrate ... the urgency of the elections that will elevate a new, democratic government in Baghdad.

*snip*

Some day an enterprising scholar may write a book exposing the Jordanian shenanigans in the current war.

*snip*

Only a month ago, Mr. Shaalan and Prime Minister Allawi privately urged the White House to cancel the elections that will likely result in their early retirement from Iraqi politics. When the president demurred, Mr. Shaalan threatened to arrest those who are poised to defeat him with the ballot.

*snip*

....[I]f Mr. Chalabi is correct, then Mr. Shaalan also tried to make off with $300 million of the Iraqi people's money to Lebanon before he left office.

*snip*

How did someone who is resorting to these Baathist tactics on the eve of his country's first free nationwide election come to run the military?

*snip*

.... Mr. Bush's National Security Council, CIA and State Department did not get the message.

*snip*

The fact that large sums of money are now going missing from Iraq's treasury before these elections is part of an intelligence failure of a higher order of magnitude than anything yet investigated by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Did the president's best and brightest advisers choose thugs and thieves to steer Iraq from occupation to democracy? As we go down to the wire in the election, it's starting to look like Mr. Chalabi - who worked so closely with the bipartisan leadership of the Senate to get the strategic legislative foundations of this war passed with the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, and who warned against the kind of mistakes made by the interim government - has one of the cleanest records in the field.

[Piranha]

Only a month ago, Mr. Shaalan and Prime Minister Allawi privately urged the White House to cancel the elections that will likely result in their early retirement from Iraqi politics.

What the hey?

Some day, I am convinced, Chalabi will earn his rightful place as a good man destroyed with State Department/CIA connivance. What a loss to the effort to bring democracy to Iraq (and, eventually, Iran).

[Drammach]

The Petra Bank Scandal and subsequent charges against Chalabi was IMHO a simple Jordanian ploy to divert suspicion, and responsibility from the real culprits, the Royal Family..
They authorized the bank, and they used it for their own personal petty cash fund.. with the Royal family's personal guarantee ...
When they spent the ground right from under the bank, depleting it's funds and putting it in debt, they then blamed it's financial troubles on Chalabi..

I too, think Chalabi will probably be vindicated, eventually..
Maybe not completely, I'm pretty sure he pulled a few strings, made some promises, twisted a few arms, floated a few dollars here and there.
But he did those things for a free Iraq, not so much for personal gain..

He was already a millionaire in America..
He could have simply stayed in the U.S. and never gotten involved.. and lived very comfortably for the rest of his life..