[lbo-talk] I Loves Me Some Chalabi

jeffrey fisher jfisher at igc.org
Fri May 28 07:03:02 PDT 2004


On Friday, May 28, 2004, at 09:31 AM, Carl Remick wrote:


>> From: "Dennis Perrin" <dperrin at comcast.net>
>>
>> By You Know Who --
>>
>> <http://slate.msn.com/id/2101345/>
>
> Newsworthy indeed: Rat Stays on Sunken Ship. "<Gurgle>, <gurgle>,"
> says Christopher Hitchens.
>
>

is it just my imagination, or is hitch's basic argument about disinformation that the the (stipulated) fact that chalabi passed disinformation doesn't matter because that's not what convinced anyone?

"Even if you assume the worst to be true—that the INC's "defectors" were either mistaken or were conscious, coached fabricators—the fact remains that the crucial presentation of the administration's case on WMD and terrorism was made at the United Nations by Secretary of State Colin Powell, with CIA Director George Tenet sitting right behind him, after those two men most hostile to Chalabi had been closeted together. [ . . . ] The plain and overlooked truth is that the administration acted upon the worst assumption about Saddam Hussein and that he himself strongly confirmed the presumption of guilt by, among many other things, refusing to comply with the U.N. resolution. This was a rational decision on the part of the coalition. [ . . . ] Whoever and whatever convinced all of these discrepant forces, it was not Chalabi's INC or Judith Miller's work in the New York Times."

that is, it's ok that he's a manipulative liar since no one was actually manipulated by him and even if they were they were only manipulated into doing the right thing, anyway.

j



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