'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Some truth-finding efforts in DC

At last! News that the US intelligence community is going back to re-evaluate the "information" it bought from Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congres in the months and years leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

The initial reports don't look good for Chalabi. The New York Times is reporting today that, "An internal assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that most of the information provided by Iraqi defectors who were made available by the Iraqi National Congress was of little or no value, according to federal officials briefed on the arrangement."

It's significant that this piece is reported by Douglas Jehl, the Timesperson put onto the case after numerous questions were asked by the role of fellow Timesperson Judith Miller as a totally uncritical-- nay, often overtly laudatory--conduit for much of Chalabi's most blatant agitprop.

In what may have been designed as an indirect admission of this uncomfortable record, Jehl writes, "The Iraqi National Congress had made some of these defectors available to several news organizations, including The New York Times, which reported their allegations about prisoners and the country's weapons program."

Ah well, better late than never-- both for the Times and, more importantly, for the DIA, which is the organization responsible for getting accurate defense info to US military commanders all around the world...

More power to the DIA folks' elbows if they should decide to really go after the snake oil purveyed by Chalabi. But in addition to tracking down his many mis-statements and outright lies, they should also be looking at the broad nexus of people in the administration, so-called "think tanks", and the US media which between them packaged Chalabi's snake-oil into a political package that was designed to jerk the US public into supporting the war.

Part of this investigation could focus on the Halliburton alum (and continued beneficiary) Dick Cheney. And another whole part on Bombs-Away Don and some of hawkish advisors in the civilian part of the Pentagon.

By the way, some folks have been talking a bit recently about Under-Secretary of Defense Doug Feith and his relationship with a firm of lawyers/consultants who have been making a big pitch to get into Iraqi consulting "on the ground floor."

If you go to the website of Feith's old law firm, "Feith and Zell", a.k.a. cutely FANDZ, you might think from the home-page that this is one big, well-extended international law firm with practices all around the globe. Click on "Participating attorneys", however, and you see they have offices only in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. But the new Iraqi Governing Council is saying that for alol they'll open their economy up to foreigners, still, they won't be allowing deals with Israeli firms.

So how does Marc Zell hope to get his entree? Makes one wonder... Funny that he's been starting up a bunch of new projects with Chalabi's nephew...

More broadly, though, it's great news that serious people in and around the US political class are starting to ask serious questions about the so-called "reasoning" that jerked the US into this war. The new questioning about the INC's "intel" is one part of that-- though I don't necessarily expect it to get very far since the DIA report was given the Stephen Cambone, who as far as I know is a pro-war hatchet-person in his own right.

The other good investigation that's opening up is opf course the one into Novak-gate-- the questioning into who it was in the administration who told Novak that Amb. Joseph Wilson's wife Valery is a CIA agent...

This one may well go pretty far, since the question of "outing" a CIA officer is something that folks on the right wing in this country have to take seriously. Plus Wilson-- far from being intimidated or silenced by the threat made to his spouse's career--seems intent to take this as far as he can. (One assumes, with her support.)

There are of course some superficial similarities with the David Kelly /Andrew Gilligan case in England. In both cases, you have a (probably highly placed) political operative seeking to silence and intimidate a "lower" member of the government bureaucracy by leaking the name of the latter to compliant folks in the media.

But in this case, it certainly doesn't seem as if either Wilson or his wife seem as though they are going to be so intimidated and humilated that they follow David Kelly's example and commit suicide. Instead, they are going to (well, he is going to) hang in there and fight this one. Excellent!

There are several reports, of course, that the leaker in chief was Karl Rove. Well, couldn't happen to nicer guy.