--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> I just got back from a Council on Foreign Relations
> event starring
> Ahmad Chalabi, interviewed by Tom Brokaw. Chalabi
> was in the U.S. to
> attend his daughter's graduation from Harvard.
>
> Several highlights:
>
> * Brokaw asked him if he was a leader manufactured
> by the U.S. He
> denied this, pointing, among other things, to the
> fact that he meets
> 300-600 Iraqis a day at his Baghdad HQ.
>
> * He complained several times that Washington no
> longer seems so fond
> of him. For example, that compound was "secured" by
> the U.S military.
> His press guy asked the commanding officer whether
> the compound was
> being secured for or from the Iraqi National
> Congress, the officer
> said he couldn't answer.
>
> * He's quite bothered by how the U.S. has
> marginalized Iraqis in the
> "post-liberation" environment, and is running the
> show pretty much by
> itself.
>
> * He claims the U.S. is refusing to interview, or
> even pursue,
> weapons scientists. (Why they would do this is a
> mystery, but that's
> what he said.) He's convinced there are all kinds of
> WMDs stashed all
> over, but they're so well hidden that only the
> scientists know where
> they are. But most have now dispersed or fled.
>
> * He claims to have turned over three weapons
> scientists to the U.S.
> forces - one a specialist in concrete injection, who
> helped build all
> those bunkers (but before handing him over to the
> U.S., the INC lent
> him out to Judith Miller of the NYT for an
> interview); another the
> guy who found the famed trailers; and the third
> someone the U.S.
> talked with briefly then "threw away."
>
> * He's convinced Saddam is alive, wandering around
> an arc to the
> north and west of Baghdad, and in control of his
> weapons. ("Saddam
> Hussein and the weapons of mass destruction are one
> in the same.") SH
> is hoping the U.S. will tire of the occupation
> business, and then
> that will be his moment.
>
> * On April 1 (April Fool's Day, which Chalabi didn't
> point out),
> Saddam was fitted for a suicide bomber's vest and
> trained in its use.
> So if he ever wants to go out in a blaze of glory,
> he can take some
> people with him.
>
> Doug
>
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