The Pentagon, Chalabi, and the cheerleaders
Regular readers of JWN may have noticed that I'm not the biggest fan of Ahmed Chalabi. Still, I admit there's something just a touch delightful about seeing him use all his old charms and slipperiness to start turning on his erstwhile handlers in the Pentagon while he gives aid and comfort to "the enemy", i.e. the French. (The enemy thing is Tom Friedman's analysis, not mine.)
The other naughty spectator sport I'm engaging in these days is watching all those serried ranks of Op-Ed columnists and various self-styled "experts" who sold Chalabi's supposed virtues on an eager-to-believe US political class for so many long years-- and seeing how those individuals are dealing with the current apparent dust-up between Chalabi and his former friends in Bombs-Away Don's Pentagon.
Jim Hoagland comes to mind, first and foremost. (Jim should have known better, but for some reason he's been foaming at the bit to have the US support Chalabi and topple Saddam for the past few years.) Danielle Pletka comes to mind, too: the former foreign-affairs aide for Senator Jesse Helms and now a recognized neocon in her own right.
So today, Danielle has a just-about-indecipherable Op-Ed in the New York Times. I've read it a couple of times and still can't figure what exactly it is she's trying to say. I'll give a handsome prize to any JWN reader who can give a reasonable explanation of what she means in this particularly opaque paragraph:
Members of Iraq's Governing Council [read: Chalabi--HC]have argued strenuously against an infusion of additional troops--American or otherwise. Already chafing at the cloying stewardship of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraq's interim government is eager to take more responsibility for security and governance of the country. Unlike United States commanders--who some of Mr. Rumsfeld's skeptics in Washington say have been stifled by the secretary's lean transformation dream--the interim government has no vested interest in keeping United States troop levels down.
Let's face it, Danielle Pletka was never particularly bright or well-informed. Such a pity that she has now been reduced to blithering idiocy.
The NYT today reported that Chalabi is asking for "at least partial control of the powerful finance and security ministries...
"
I found this interesting, given that the finance ministry was responsible for announcing the economic "liberalization" laws over the weekend.
Oddly, no one seems to have put two and two together.