He's back!

Just in time for Halloween, one of the most intriguing characters in the whole Iraq war debacle has once more found favor with U.S. forces in that country.

When I first began to study the neocons – during the run-up to the Iraq war – a man’s name kept surfacing.

This man is an MIT-trained mathematician and a wealthy businessman.

He was an exiled Iraqi and president of the Iraqi National Congress, set up with funds from the CIA. The INC pushed for the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Among this Iraqi’s staunchest supporters were neocons and high-ranking Pentagon officials Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle.

Pre-war intelligence provided by this man was stovepiped by the Pentagon’s Douglas Feith directly into the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Those notions that Saddam had WMD and U.S. forces would be greeted with flowers – he’s your source.

With his mission accomplished, this man - who sat in the president’s box with the first lady at Bush’s January 2004 SOTU address - in February 2004 told Britain’s Daily Telegraph:

“We are heroes in error. As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone, and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We're ready to fall on our swords if he wants.”

“Heroes in error.” The man then insisted the interview had never occurred!

Why would anyone put such trust in a man with an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Jordan – charged with embezzling $300 million from his Petra Bank? He was sentenced in absentia to 22 years. He filed a lawsuit in the U.S., claiming this was “a smear campaign.” Jordan’s king eventually pardoned him.

Here the plot thickens to the density of osmium.

Back in his homeland of Iraq, the man didn’t exactly do what the U.S. expected of him. The inticate details: LINK

Soon there were other warrants – in Iraq.

The man, accused of counterfeiting, said the bogus money was “samples” from his new job overseeing the country’s central bank. LINK

An arrest warrant for murder was issued in Iraq for the man’s nephew, then head of Iraq’s War Crimes Tribunal. The nephew, in London at the time, said the warrant was “an effort to discredit the tribunal.” LINK

The man’s Baghdad home was raided by Iraqi police and U.S. troops. U.S. officials accused the man of passing secrets to Iran. “Ridiculous,” he said. LINK

Remember this man’s name: Ahmed Chalabi.

On Monday, the Progress Report, Center for American Progress, reported:

“On 28 October 2007, McClatchy (newspaper group) revealed that Ahmad Chalabi, the disgraced Iraqi politician who embellished reports of Iraq's WMD to encourage an American attack, has ‘re-emerged as a central figure in the latest U.S. strategy for Iraq.’ As the new head of the services committee, charged with bringing electricity, health and other services to Baghdad, Chalabi serves at ‘the heart of the surge plan.’ Col. Steven Boylan, spokesman for Gen. David Petraeus, heralded Chalabi as ‘an important part of the process.’ "

In again, out again, this man is once more in U.S. favor. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

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A brief and entertaining post follows.