Manipulated by Chalabi

My friend Paul deArmond, aka Warbaby, of World in Conflict is an extraordinarily sharp-eyed analyst. Sometimes he overreaches, and sometimes he misses the mark, but more often than not he's on the money. I went back recently and reread a piece he cobbled together nearly a year ago regarding developments in Iraq, and was struck by its prescience:

INC and blowback

What has not been widely discussed is the central role the Iraqi National Congress (INC) played in the road to war -- not as puppet but instigator. The role of the INC in generating unreliable "intelligence" on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD -- meaning nuclear, chemical and biological weapons) has been mentioned in passing in the media since the occupation started to go sour. Once the investigations move beyond the ability of some as-yet unidentified foreign operation to plant childishly crude forgeries in the State of the Union address, the INC's steady stream of questionable intelligence will deserve more scrutiny.

And that's where the afore-mentioned list of bogus assumptions in the Bush war plan become very interesting. You see, all of them trace back to a single source. If you guessed the Iraqi National Congress, you win the exploding cigar!

His conclusions back then, in particular, seem especially relevant:

The White House allowed the false information to circulate through the echo chamber of the media. The hawks made baseless allegations that would move America closer to war, the INC dutifully provided the "intelligence" selected to reinforce their masters' views, the media uncritically echoed the leaks and statements by "unnamed officials" -- and the public was manipulated.

The intentions of the parties involved may be arguable, but the effect is indistinguishable from psychological warfare against the national interest.

The debate over whether the misinformation was a product of intentional deceit or incompetent gullibility misses one important point: the United States government needs to be protected from bad intelligence and particularly needs to be defended against external manipulation. In this case, the counter-intelligence apparatus failed to defend the integrity of the intelligence process and the country has been manipulated by misinformation disguised as "intelligence."