Robert J. Chassell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
> The question is whether a year or more ago, he and/or the Iraqi
> National Council provided the US with `intelligence' that was designed
> to influence the US to act against Saddam Hussein's government and do
> so in a way that benefited Iran more than the US, by causing senior US
> officials to misunderstand the situation before the US-Iraqi war
> began.
>
> If so, the Bush Administration got suckered.
>
> (Note that many have said that the Bush Administration were eager to
> go to war against Iraq; that is not the issue. The issue is the
> outcome, whether the outcome favors Iran more than the US government
> had planned a year ago. Put another way, over the next generation,
> who gains victory?)
>
> Does anyone know more about this than I?
On 25 Feb 2004, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> responded
<<http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040219-115614-3297r.htm>>
Where Chalabi says:
"We are heroes in error," he said in Baghdad on Wednesday. "As far
as we're concerned, we've been entirely successful."
"Our objective has been achieved. That tyrant Saddam is gone, and
the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not
important."
This does tell us that Chalabi is happy and suggests that he did not
mind whether the intelligence was accurate. But the story does not go
into the further question of whether the Bush Administration was
influenced in order that the Iranians would benefit more than the
Americans; or whether the Bush Administration was suckered by Iranian
intelligence.
The analyses I have seen suggest that the US invaded Iraq in order to
intimidate other Moslem countries and that opposition to nuclear,
radiological, chemical and biological weapons was a `selling point',
not a primary reason. In addition to intimidating other, the
administration was also against dangerous weapons, but their
destruction was to have been a happy side effect; it was not the main
internal reason for the war.. (The Administration's failure to search
`known sites' as soon as it had the change in the latter half of April
2003 is puzzling. That failure tends to diminish my claim that the
the Administration was concerned about dangerous weapons.)
Presuming either that the US invaded Iraq in order to intimidate other
Moslem countries, as I think, or to destroy dangerous weapons, or to
enforce a mandatory UN resolution, or, as enemies of the Adminstration
claim, in order to delay the pricing of oil in Euros and to gain
contracts in Iraq for US companies -- presuming any or all of these
reasons, the US looks at the moment to be gaining less than Iran has
gained. This is the issue.
Moreover, the ill-planning for an extended guerilla war and for
dealing with Iranian-organized Shi'ite groups makes more sense if one
believes that senior members of the Bush Administration really did not
expect such problems, even though others in the US government had
warned of them.
The outcome, so far not quite a year later, suggests that the
Administration, a year ago, might well have been suckered by the
intelligence operatives of an `Axis of Evil' country. Is this true?
--
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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