Thursday, June 03, 2004
The Post has more on Chalabi
The Washington Post is hard after the Chalabi story. This much is apparently old news, although I didn't know it:
However, Chalabi's actual plan to assassinate Hussein may have been phony, designed to elicit Iranian support for Chalabi's campaign to oust Hussein.
The Post article was written by Walter Princus and Bradley Graham, two of the paper's heavy hitters. They also report that the investigation into the leak is moving along quickly:
This affair strikes me as a massive inter-agency struggle, and it likely has something to do with George Tenet's resignation earlier today. One thing is very clear -- everybody is talking and they can't stop the leaks, so this story will probably continue to develop.
Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi politician suspected by U.S. authorities of having told Iran this spring that its secret communications code had been broken, was involved in an intercept episode nine years ago, according to senior administration officials.
Officials yesterday recounted an incident in early 1995 when Chalabi's name turned up in an encrypted Iranian cable reporting a purported CIA-backed plan to assassinate Saddam Hussein, then Iraq's president. The message was intercepted by U.S. intelligence and caused a major political stir in Washington.
However, Chalabi's actual plan to assassinate Hussein may have been phony, designed to elicit Iranian support for Chalabi's campaign to oust Hussein.
To prove to the Iranians he had Washington's support to go after Hussein, Chalabi forged a letter on U.S. National Security Council stationery that asked him to contact the Iranian government for help.... The letter said Washington had dispatched to northern Iraq an "NSC team" headed by Robert Pope, a fictitious name.
In a meeting with Iranian intelligence officers, Chalabi left the letter on his desk while he took a phone call in another room, knowing the Iranians would read it....
What happened next has not been previously reported.
The Iranian intelligence officers sent an encrypted message to Tehran about Chalabi's supposed plot, officials said yesterday. The United States intercepted the transmission. U.S. intelligence had broken Iran's secret communications codes during that period as well.
The contents of the 1995 intercept became the basis of a report that circulated fairly widely in Washington intelligence and law enforcement circles, an official recalled. The result was ... deep distrust within the CIA for Chalabi....
The Post article was written by Walter Princus and Bradley Graham, two of the paper's heavy hitters. They also report that the investigation into the leak is moving along quickly:
A U.S. law enforcement source said yesterday that FBI investigators, trying to determine the source of the leak, had interviewed at least one Defense Department employee in Baghdad and had administered a polygraph test. More tests were planned, some involving officials at the Pentagon, said the source who demanded anonymity because the investigation is secret.
This affair strikes me as a massive inter-agency struggle, and it likely has something to do with George Tenet's resignation earlier today. One thing is very clear -- everybody is talking and they can't stop the leaks, so this story will probably continue to develop.
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