Shane Mage
"I am part of that force which always does good by attempting to do evil." (Mephistopheles)
>Newsday - May 21, 2004
>
>Chalabi aide is suspected Iranian spy
>
>BY KNUT ROYCE
>WASHINGTON BUREAU
>
>WASHINGTON -- The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a
>U.S.-funded arm of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has been
>used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the
>United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets,
>according to intelligence sources.
>
>"Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States
>through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection
>Program information to provoke the United States into getting rid of
>Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source Friday who was briefed
>on the Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions, which were based
>on a review of thousands of internal documents.
>
>The Information Collection Program also "kept the Iranians informed
>about what we were doing" by passing classified U.S. documents and
>other sensitive information, he said. The program has received
>millions of dollars from the U.S. government over several years.
>
>An administration official confirmed that "highly classified
>information had been provided [to the Iranians] through that
>channel."
>
>The Defense Department this week halted payment of $340,000 a month
>to Chalabi's program. Chalabi had long been the favorite of the
>Pentagon's civilian leadership. Intelligence sources say Chalabi
>himself has passed on sensitive U.S. intelligence to the Iranians.
>
>Patrick Lang, former director of the intelligence agency's Middle
>East branch, said he had been told by colleagues in the intelligence
>community that Chalabi's U.S.-funded program to provide information
>about weapons of mass destruction and insurgents was effectively an
>Iranian intelligence operation. "They [the Iranians] knew exactly
>what we were up to," he said.
>
>He described it as "one of the most sophisticated and successful
>intelligence operations in history."
>
>"I'm a spook. I appreciate good work. This was good work," he said.
>
>An intelligence agency spokesman would not discuss questions about
>his agency's internal conclusions about the alleged Iranian
>operation. But he said some of its information had been helpful to
>the U.S. "Some of the information was great, especially as it
>pertained to arresting high value targets and on force protection
>issues," he said. "And some of the information wasn't so great."
>
>At the center of the alleged Iranian intelligence operation,
>according to administration officials and intelligence sources, is
>Aras Karim Habib, a 47-year-old Shia Kurd who was named in an arrest
>warrant issued during a raid on Chalabi's home and offices in
>Baghdad Thursday. He eluded arrest.
>
>Karim, who sometimes goes by the last name of Habib, is in charge of
>the information collection program.
>
>The intelligence source briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency's
>conclusions said that Karim's "fingerprints are all over it."
>
>"There was an ongoing intelligence relationship between Karim and
>the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, all funded by the U.S.
>government, inadvertently," he said.
>
>The Iraqi National Congress has received about $40 million in U.S.
>funds over the past four years, including $33 million from the State
>Department and $6 million from the Defense Intelligence Agency.
>
>In Baghdad after the war, Karim's operation was run out of the
>fourth floor of a secure intelligence headquarters building, while
>the intelligence agency was on the floor above, according to an
>Iraqi source who knows Karim well.
>
>The links between the INC and U.S. intelligence go back to at least
>1992, when Karim was picked by Chalabi to run his security and
>military operations.
>
>Indications that Iran, which fought a bloody war against Iraq during
>the 1980s, was trying to lure the U.S. into action against Saddam
>Hussein appeared many years before the Bush administration decided
>in 2001 that ousting Hussein was a national priority.
>
>In 1995, for instance, Khidhir Hamza, who had once worked in Iraq's
>nuclear program and whose claims that Iraq had continued a massive
>bomb program in the 1990s are now largely discredited, gave UN
>nuclear inspectors what appeared to be explosive documents about
>Iraq's program. Hamza, who fled Iraq in 1994, teamed up with Chalabi
>after his escape.
>
>The documents, which referred to results of experiments on enriched
>uranium in the bomb's core, were almost flawless, according to
>Andrew Cockburn's recent account of the event in the political
>newsletter CounterPunch.
>
>But the inspectors were troubled by one minor matter: Some of the
>techinical descriptions used terms that would only be used by an
>Iranian. They determined that the original copy had been written in
>Farsi by an Iranian scientist and then translated into Arabic.
>
>And the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded the documents
>were fraudulent.
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