U.S. to Halt Payments to Iraqi Group Headed by ...(Ahmad Chalabi)

[RedEarth]

U.S. to Halt Payments to Iraqi Group Headed by a Onetime Pentagon Favorite
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

Published: May 18, 2004


ASHINGTON, May 17 — The United States government has decided to halt monthly $335,000 payments to the Iraqi National Congress, the group headed by Ahmad Chalabi, an official with the group said on Monday.

Mr. Chalabi, a longtime exile leader and now a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, played a crucial role in persuading the administration that Saddam Hussein had to be removed from power. But he has since become a lightning rod for critics of the Bush administration, who say the United States relied on him too heavily for prewar intelligence that has since proved faulty.

Mr. Chalabi's group has received at least $27 million in United States financing in the past four years, the Iraqi National Congress official said. This includes $335,000 a month as part of a classified program through the Defense Intelligence Agency, since the summer of 2002, to help gather intelligence in Iraq. The official said his group had been told that financing will cease June 30, when occupation authorities are scheduled to turn over sovereignty to Iraqis.

Internal reviews by the United States government have found that much of the information provided as part of the classified program before American forces invaded Iraq last year was useless, misleading or even fabricated.

more....

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/18/politics/18CHAL.html

[aquart]

1. Who will pay for his bodyguards?

I dunno. To me this looks like a pissed off invitation to kill the bastard.

But that's just me.

[asjr]

2. With the money we have given him he can

buy his own bodyguards. I really resent our tax-payer dollars going to prop up this con man. And the administration knew he was a con man.

[opihimoimoi]

3. The Pubs got conned?? BWAhahahahahaha

[Just Me]

6. Naw! Chalabi's getting a "funneled" paycheck via US contractors.

How much you wanna bet!!!

[2Design]

4. Last fours years???????? how long has the plan been in place to

take over IRaq???

And BushCo says the plan wasn't there.....excuse me!!!!!

[daleo]

5. I wonder if Chalabi has alternative sources by now?

Maybe drug money, or ill-gotten oil money? Did BFEE really cut him off, or are there under the table payments going on? Was the car bomb yesterday a warning by the BFEE to Chalabi, "don't spill any secrets, even though we have cut you off"? So many questions.

[Barrett808]

7. Michael Rubin/AEI still love him

Michael Rubin, who spent eight months in Iraq as an adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority, the occupation administration, and is now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research center in Washington, said: "The truth of the matter is that the I.N.C.-provided information rolled up a lot of insurgent cells that were targeting American soldiers. It stopped bombings and terrorist attacks that were aimed at U.S. troops. That program saved a lot of lives."

"Conservative research center" is certainly a blandishment. How about "birthplace of the illegal Iraq invasion"?