Last night Bill O’Reilly offered what he describes as a single-sourced but credible summary of what went down in Iraq. Most of this stuff has been floating around for a while, but it’s notable that even right-wing pundits are now conceding this kind of stuff:
The war in Iraq, what really happened? — That’s the subject of this evening’s “Talking Points Memo.”
The following information comes from a single well-placed source with direct access to the Bush administration. Now I usually like to get two sources on things like this, but that’s not possible right now. So take this memo for what it’s worth.
As has been widely reported, the Defense Department is running the Iraq campaign with the State Department and U.S. intelligence agencies, pretty much spectators to the decision making. Donald Rumsfeld and his deputies allied themselves early with Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who wants to be president of Iraq.
Chalabi fed Rumsfeld in the Pentagon information that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. And he also gave this information to New York Times reporter Judith Miller. The scenario, of course, turned out to be wildly overstated.
From the beginning, the military and the CIA did not trust Chalabi, with General Tommy Franks specifically despising him. When Chalabi demanded to be on the scene for the fall of Saddam’s statue, Franks said no, defying Secretary Rumsfeld.
Chalabi also told the Defense Department that his organization could run the civil service in Iraq during the occupation and that Saddam’s army and the Ba’athists running the country for Saddam should all be fired, which they were. That turned out to be a disaster, as many of those people are now actively fighting against the coalition.
Chalabi also allegedly bragged about his personal relationship with reporter Judith Miller. And now The New York Times once again finds itself in a very difficult position. Many of Ms. Miller’s stories turned out to be wrong. And her friendship with Chalabi is a potential embarrassment for the paper, which doesn’t need that after the Jason Blair fiasco.
Now President Bush allowed Rumsfeld and his team to dictate the Iraq strategy on the strong advice of Vice President Dick Cheney, who also bought into the Chalabi propaganda. Now the Bush administration is scrambling to recover from the mistakes. And Chalabi is in deep trouble. The gloves are off. And the CIA which hates him says he spied for Iran.
Finally, we have told you, and as my source confirms, many military commanders in Iraq simply have no confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld, who is seen as indecisive and tainted by the Chalabi association. The Pentagon and Rumsfeld office are supposed to be on the same page. They are not.
President Bush has taken the first step in reorganizing his foreign policy situation by saying goodbye to CIA Chief Tenet. More resignations are likely.
So summing up, the U.S. government bought into Ahmed Chalabi’s scheme and America is paying a big price for that decision. That’s what happened.
I like how when O’Reilly has a criticism, he often refers to the faceless “U.S. government” rather than the Bush administration. And of course the N.Y. Times is equally culpable here, since it shares equal power with the president in unnecessarily squandering the lives of hundreds of U.S. troops and spending hundreds of billions of dollars following the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Chalabi vision for Iraq.
Anyway, it is interesting hearing a rightist pundit admit that Rumsfeld has lost credibility and that more resignations should be coming down the pike.
