http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=...7-055713-8345r
CIA report slams Pentagon's favorite Iraqi
By Eli J. Lake
UPI State Department Correspondent
From the International Desk
Published 4/8/2003 1:55 PM
WASHINGTON, April 7 (UPI) -- The Central Intelligence Agency issued a report
last week claiming that the opposition leader airlifted by the Pentagon to
Iraq over the weekend, Ahmad Chalabi, would not be an effective leader to
replace Saddam Hussein because many Iraqis do not like him.
In a classified report distributed widely within the U.S. government, the
CIA argues that Chalabi, a favorite of Pentagon civilian officials, and
Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim, the leader of the Tehran-based Supreme Council for
the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, have little popular support among Iraqis on
the ground.
Critics of the agency have questioned the report's timing and motives.
"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, a long time adviser to Chalabi and now President of the
Committee to Liberate Iraq, a lobbying group formed last year to support
ending Saddam Hussein's regime. "Whatever the stories the agency may be
spreading it's clear Centcom Commander Tommy Franks thinks the INC has an
important role to play."
The report comes at a critical time for U.S. policy as coalition forces
enter Baghdad. While publicly senior American officials have said they plan
to include both Iraqi opposition leaders and leaders culled from inside the
country in the next government in Baghdad, behind the scenes hawks and doves
in the administration are fighting a nasty battle over the leadership of the
transition authority that replaces Saddam's regime. Chalabi has long been
supported by a leading hawk, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and
other advocates of regime change in Iraq.
Last week Congressional appropriators voted to funnel $2.5 billion to the
State Department for reconstructing the country even though the White House
originally requested the money go to the Pentagon. Senior State Department
officials deny lobbying for the money. Secretary of State Colin Powell,
according to two State Department officials, called the White House from his
plane returning from Brussels last week to complain about a policy memo from
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld calling on the White House to name the
transition authority for Iraq sooner than expected.
A U.S. official familiar with the CIA report told United Press International
Monday, "This is about the Iraqi interim authority. It discusses the factors
likely to affect the legitimacy and acceptability of an Iraqi transitional
authority in the eyes of the Iraqi public. In part it looks at Iraqi
attitudes toward the Iraqi opposition and how the INC is viewed on the
inside."
A former U.S. intelligence official 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 on the
ground there.
"I think that nobody has any idea who is popular on the ground inside Iraq,"
said Danielle Pletka, the American Enterprise Institute's Vice President for
Foreign and Defense Policy Studies told UPI. "People who say that they do,
including agencies of the U.S. government, are saying so to further a
political agenda."
When asked about the CIA report on CBS' "60 Minutes" Sunday evening, Chalabi
said it seemed to him the agency "is more focused on me than on Saddam."
The CIA has long considered Chalabi an unsuitable leader for the government
that replaces Saddam. In 1992, while the agency supported Chalabi and an
open strategy to spark a rebellion against Baghdad from the north, they also
pursued a palace coup strategy without telling him. The agency has also held
Chalabi accountable for compromising a coup attempt in 1995, when Saddam's
men rounded up disloyal military officers the agency had hoped would kill
the Iraqi leader.
Last year, the agency released an assessment of intelligence Chalabi's
organization provided to the U.S. government, concluding that approximately
30 percent of it was accurate. However, one key piece of intelligence from
Chalabi's operation was firmed up over the weekend when Marines raided a
terrorist training facility outside of Baghdad in Salman Pak. Defectors
slipped out of the country over a year ago by Chalabi's Iraqi National
Congress said the facility trained numerous al-Qaida fighters. A spokesman
for U.S. Central Command said over the weekend the U.S. military had
concluded the facility was being used for terrorist training.
The agency has also blamed Chalabi for predicting Iraqis would welcome
American troops in the initial phases of the war, though recent reporting
from al-Najaf and Basra suggests that the opposition leader's optimism may
not have been as misplaced as at first thought.
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