Washington Times - April 9, 2003
Chalabi backers slam CIA By Eli J. Lake UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Supporters of Iraqi National Congress (INC) leader Ahmed Chalabi are accusing the CIA of distributing a classified report critical of Mr. Chalabi as part of a politically motivated campaign to discredit him.
"The CIA has been bad mouthing Chalabi and the INC for years. What is surprising is that they are still devoting resources to their character assassination effort instead of other more obvious missions," said Randy Scheunemann, president of the Committee to Liberate Iraq, a lobbying group formed last year.
"Whatever the stories the agency may be spreading, it's clear CentCom Commander Tommy Franks thinks the INC has an important role to play," Mr. Scheunemann said in an interview.
Mr. Chalabi, the Pentagon's candidate to lead the first interim Iraqi government, is under fire from the CIA, as well as the State Department. Both fear he will be ineffective because many Iraqis do not like him.
The Pentagon airlifted Mr. Chalabi and 700 lightly armed fighters from northern Iraq to the southern city of Nasiriyah over the weekend.
The group is expected to form the core of an interim Iraqi government and a new national Iraqi army.
The CIA, in a classified report distributed widely within the U.S. government, argues that Mr. Chalabi, a favorite of Pentagon civilian leaders, and Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim, the Iranian based leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, have little popular support among Iraqis on the ground.
Senior American officials have said publicly they plan to include both exiled Iraqi opposition groups, such as the INC, and leaders culled from inside the country in the next government in Baghdad.
But behind the scenes, hawks and doves in the Bush administration are fighting a nasty battle over the leadership of the transition authority.
Last week congressional appropriators voted to funnel $2.5 billion to the State Department for reconstructing the country even though the White House requested the money go to the Pentagon.
Senior State Department officials deny having lobbied lawmakers for the money.
A U.S. official familiar with the CIA report told United Press International: "This is about the Iraqi interim authority. It discusses the factors likely to effect the legitimacy and acceptability of an Iraqi transitional authority in the eyes of the Iraqi public. In part it looks at Iraqi attitudes towards the Iraqi opposition and how the INC is viewed on the inside."
A former U.S. intelligence officer familiar with the report said: "They basically say that every time you mention Chalabi's name to an Iraqi, they want to puke." This official however questioned how accurate the CIA's assessment of Iraqi politics could be given the fluidity of events there.
Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said it is doubtful whether anyone on the outside knows who is, and who is not, popular inside Iraq.
"People who say that they do, including agencies of the U.S. government, are saying so to further a political agenda," Miss Pletka said.
When asked about the CIA report on CBS' "Sixty Minutes" Sunday evening, Mr. Chalabi said it seemed to him the agency "is more focused on me than on Saddam."
The CIA has long considered Mr. Chalabi an unsuitable leader for the government that replaces Saddam Hussein.
The agency blamed Mr. Chalabi for compromising a coup attempt in 1995, when Saddam's men rounded up disloyal military officers.
Last year, the agency released an assessment critical of intelligence that Mr. Chalabi's INC organization had provided to the United States.
However, one key piece of intelligence from Mr. Chalabi's operation firmed up over the weekend when Marines raided a terrorist training facility outside of Baghdad.
Defectors ferreted out of the country by Mr. Chalabi's INC had said the facility trained numerous al Qaeda fighters. A spokesman for U.S. Central Command said they too concluded the facility was being used for terrorist training.