NEWS: PunkÂ’d!: Were Bush and Cheney Played by Iran?

POLITICS: Punk’d!: Were Bush and Cheney Played by Iran?

Members of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC) are alleged to have been Iranian agents who have been feeding the US disinformation for years Newsday is reporting. The INC is a group of former Iraqi exiles who have been closely allied with Dick Cheney and senior members of the Department of Defense. It also appears that the Bush administration may have been unwittingly doing the bidding of Tehran.

If this turns out to be true, and Bush and Cheney did the work of Iranians by toppling Saddam, it could be another disastrous scandal for the Bush administration. It could also turn out to be one of the greatest espionage coups since Klaus Fuchs handed over the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.

Oh, my fucking god. If this is true it's bigger than Watergate. Assuming the evidence is inconclusive, this will be the "JFK Assassination" of the next thirty years. By that I mean that with evidence that suggests and supports this allegation without actually proving it, people will be taking sides, publishing books, and making movies supporting one conclusion or the other for decades to come. And anyone proposing that the data is inconclusive and that the whole idea is a bit of a stretch will be viewed as a closed-minded dupe of the Bush/Cheney group.

Making an allegation this astonishing is hugely damaging to the Bush/Cheney administration. Even without strong evidence, the seed of doubt has been planted. I mean, it makes so much sense.

[Edited on May 22, 2004 9:24AM]

Well, I'm not sure I'm willing to put on the tinfoil hat for this one, but it does seem to me that this administration got sold a bill of goods by a con-man who told them exactly what they wanted to hear. Chalabi, after all, was one of the main people telling them that Iraq would welcome American troops as liberators, and was spinning wild tales of a vast arsenal of WMD's Saddam had ready to go at a moment's notice.

To me, it just highlights my main problem with Bush as president: his simple-mindedness. His willingness to just seize upon what's "right" and not listen to anything that brings that into question.

This is huge. If John Kerry can't defeat Bush with shit like this, he's not worthy to be President.

Also, I've long believed that by going to war with Arab countries in response to September 11th, the U.S. has thus far been giving Osama Bin Laden precisely what he wanted.

They say he attacked us because he thought we were "weak" and wouldn't respond, but really, I think he attacked us because he knew precisely what a cowboy like George W. Bush would do in response -- start attacking Arab countries. OBL wants a WWIII, a Jihad, between the West and Islam, and G.W. has played right into his fucking hands.

Now, it turns out, he's played right into Iran's plans too. It takes a spectacular moron to pull that off.



[Edited on May 22, 2004 by Keith]

The question about Chalabi is, are the Bush Administration country-fried rubes, or cynical liars?

I suspect, of course, that it's a little from column A, a little from column B. But it's frightening how much comes from A. I mean, I think people like Wolofowitz really believed that we would be greeted with rose petals and sugarwater, and that Chalabi was a Jeffersonian statesman who could be intsalled to the gratitude of all Iraqis. Scary...

Seems pretty conclusive so far. This isn't an investigative journalism piece, this is the DIA saying this

I just don't think this administration would have needed to be fed any false information to look like total fuck ups.

It has been widely known for years that Chalabi used Iranian intelligence as a source for his information.

IIRC, he even invited some UN weapons inspectors to meet with iranian intelligence a while back.

Bush's most recent (and hopefully last) State of the Union address. Notice who's right behind Laura? Axis of Evil, indeed.

Yup.

Every government in the world must know by now that the Bush administration can be taken for a ride. Bush has never thought anything over properly and to be honest is basically a puppet for those with their own agendas in his own government.

I wont feel sorry for Bush if this proves to be the final nail in his coffin; he's been asking for it for a long time. His gung-ho attitude has been on display for all to see and it was only a matter of time before another government used it to their advantage.

Its gonna be crazy if this proves to be true.

Wow
This would make this the largest international story for as long as I lived. Just thinking about the enormity of this if it turns out to be true is incredible. This would be something that would be remembered for a thousand years, how a middle rate power was able to manipulate the most powerful country in the world into finishing what it couldn't.

knowledge is power, i wouldnt say the current American government knows much. The American people should demand answers from their leaders as to how things like this could possibly happen.

If we do that, though, we're unamerican commie pinko nazi fascist anarchist liberal idiots who apparently cry themselves to sleep and then wet the bed and have mommy clean it up.

Also: Wow. Whoda thunk.

Keith,

You mean the biggest ass kicking in history? Or did you see OBL walking down the Champs Elysee last week without a care in the world?

Oh yeah, he's in the catbird seat, living large and in control of his destiny. Just as long as somebody doesn't decide to stop living in a cave with terrorist/poet and become $25 million richer.

That Bush cowboy'ed up after 9/11 came as complete surprise to everybody, especially OBL. I suppose that if you're rewriting history, you should make no exceptions. Gotta give you points for thoroughness, though.

Shorted sighted and naive, my friend. OBL doesn't give a shit whether he lives or dies. We've killed lots of Al Qaeda, lots of Taliban, lots of Iraqis, and lots of Arab civilians, too. But this is, as Bush is so fond of telling us, but not in the way he thinks, a war like no other before.

If Osama Bin Laden and every member of Al Qaeda in the world were killed, but Iraq were in chaos, and the Arab nations (most notably Syria, Libya, Egypt, and Iran) were at war with the United States and Israel in the Middle East, Osama Bin Laden would have achieved his objective.

You and I may believe that we would eventually "win" such a war, but Osama Bin Laden, based on his faith and sense of Arab pride, does not, and it would be a Pyrrhic victory at best. If the United States continues on its route of total dependence on oil, and we were faced with a Middle East that was actively hostile to us, we would be forced to either occupy the entire region indefinitely, or deal with a rapidly declining oil supply. Either option would be ruinous for the United States. We might survive technically, but be relegated to a poor, broken nation.

I'm just trying to think like Bin Laden, and that's my opinion.

It's certainly plausible given recent events.

The black comedy continues to unfold!

The plan for Bush to cowboy up in the middle east came long before 911.

“Provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein”

No provocation was needed for Bush, he wanted an excuse to invade, this information fit into his desires as much as it would for Iran. They knew of the source, it didnÂ’t matter.

Give me a fucking break. Could you people try not to swarm on every conspiracy theory like seagulls on french fries? Like Bush really needed persuading by anyone.

BULLSHIT.
They knew goddamn well that they had next to nothing, purely out of their own motives.
This is yet another bogus claim swallowed whole by the Stenographers to Power who have the audacity to call themselves journalists.

I'd tend to agree: I don't think Chalabi actually manipulated the Bush administration into going to war, because I believe the Bush administration was going to war with Saddam from Day 1; they just needed a reason. 9/11, unfortunately, gave them one, but I believe they would have tried to found a way to start the war without it.

However, it did provide a perfect chance for an opportunistic scumbag like Chalabi to march in and get all the handouts he could out of the US, and even a little out of the Iranians while he was at it.

Wait! This gives us an excuse to invade Iran, right?