NEWS
Monday, February 16, 2004
"A wily expert in the politics of the bazaar, he knew he had to sell his scheme on what was good for Americans and their security. He was happy to funnel information to the vice president that painted a picture of Saddam hunkered on a hair-raising stockpile of W.M.D. His group, the Iraqi National Congress, tried to spin our government and media through its "information collection program." Intelligence officials now say that the prewar information provided to Washington by this group was suspect and useless, even disinformation.But here's the wild thing: the propaganda program was underwritten by U.S. government funds. So Americans paid Ahmad Chalabi to gull them into a war that is costing them a billion a week - and a precious human cost. Cops dealing with their snitches check out the information better than the Bush administration did. ...
Swept up in big dreams, the foreign policy dream team became dupes in Ahmad Chalabi's big con."
> From Maureen Dowd's column, "The Thief of Baghdad," although I think she's entirely too easy on Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, etc: I don't see them as dupes at all, just malicious warmongers and colonizers.
Posted by Rob at 3:22 AM
