Aram Rosten, who seems to have some expertise, writes a Buzzfeed obit for Ahmad Chalabi:
If not for the man named Ahmad Chalabi, the United States probably would not have invaded Iraq in 2003. If not for the Iraq War, as a senior CIA official flatly told BuzzFeed News earlier this year, there would be no ISIS. Indeed, the life of the charismatic and obsessive Chalabi, who died Tuesday of heart failure at 71, led to devastating and unpredicted results that will reverberate for decades.
Before he changed American and Middle East history, Chalabi was a failed Iraqi banker accused of massive international financial fraud in the 1980s. But through guile and grit, he managed to transform himself into Saddam Hussein’s most implacable and effective foe. The CIA, in cable traffic, called him Pulsar 1. His followers called him “the Boss” or “the Doctor.”…
… More than anyone else in the late 1990s and the early part of the Bush administration, Chalabi had planted the seed in influential American thinkers, chiefly neoconservatives, that removing Saddam Hussein from power was a strategic imperative. But he did far more. Funded by the U.S., he fed bogus information and propaganda to the American press and to intelligence agencies.
In spring 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq and, as Chalabi boasted, toppled Saddam, because of him and the Iraqi National Congress. He dressed in a black Hugo Boss T-shirt, and he was flown by the American Air Force to the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriya with a small army of ill-trained and chaotic “Free Iraqi Forces.”
Chalabi thought the U.S. would help install him as Saddam’s replacement, and he envisioned riding through Baghdad to cheering crowds of Iraqis, like de Gaulle returning triumphant to France. But that never happened. He had lost his influence in Washington, D.C., and he had too many enemies in the U.S. and Iraq…
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
You have to open the permalink to comment, and there are no next link/back link buttons? DUMPSTER FIRE!
rikyrah
So, Bevin won in Kentucky. Absolutely no sympathy. Not one phucking ounce.
rikyrah
Chalibi was the crook Bush and Cheney were looking for. They were a match made in Hell.
Gimlet
@rikyrah:
With or without Chalabi, Bush-Cheney were going to invade Iraq.
geg6
I hope that fucker felt his heart seize up and had the realization he was going to die before deep pain set in and he fucking gasped his cursed last.
Meanwhile, is it possible that PA will elect three Dems to the Supreme Court? 42% reporting says it’s possible but not yet in the bag.
benw
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): the next/previous post buttons are now grey boxes with white arrows in them on each edge of the browser that stay with the screen even when you scroll. They’re one of the best parts of the site redesign. However, those buttons do seem to be gone from the mobile site.
Schlemazel
“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”
He won’t need a large grave but will need many to hold all his evil.
Baud
@geg6:
Hope so. We could use some good news.
jl
@Gimlet: Probably true. And IIRC Chalabi was as delusional in his own way as Cheney was, and in over his head as much as W was. I think Chalabi had the US govt (aka Cheney Inc.) help him set up some kind of Iraqi foreign legion that he would lead at the latter stages of the invasion, and would provide him with some sort of power base or influence in the new Iraq. And IIRC it dissolved into chaos and disappeared as soon as it entered Iraq.
schrodinger's cat
Bush and Cheney are responsible for ISIS, not Chalabi.
Mike G
@Gimlet:
Bush/Cheney were begging to be told what they wanted to hear, Chalabi just supplied the eager and willing neocon demand for sweet little lies about Iraq.
Brachiator
Chalabi was just a convenient chump thrown in front of an ignorant press. Bush and Cheney were determined to attack Iraq. Without Chalabi, they would have come up with another story. The seeds of ISIS, and the dream of a unified caliphate, existed long before Bush and crew set off on the Iraq misadventure. Authoritarian and secular régimes created pressures independent of US and Western interests in the region.
Ella in NM
Ummm, major problems with the site noted HERE. The Mayhew/Bevins post is now at the top of every other post. Seems like John needs to apologize for all the whiners who don’t like new stuff–we actually just like stuff to make sense.
NotMax
A look at Chalabi from a respected and experienced reporter who was there.
Funny, isn’t it, how few seem to mention Chalabi’s Petra bank Enron-like scandal and absconding ahead of prosecution (and subsequent conviction in absentia) in Jordan with untold millions?
OT: Oh joy, now the Facebook Social Plug-ins widget is on BJ, which slows front page loading time to a crawl. And, intermittently showing up, Double Click, which may as well be digi-speak for incipient malware. Thankfully, Ghostery blocks ’em on Firefox.
Gravenstone
When viewed from the front page, your post and Richard’s post above it are combined under your title.
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: Absolutely. Chalabi was Dick Cheney’s useful idiot. The invasion of Iraq and the destruction of the Middle East were almost inevitable from the moment the Flordia recount stopped.
Gravenstone
@schrodinger’s cat: I don’t think the rise of ISIS/L is limited to a singular parent. There’s plenty of neocon warmongers to go around for that “honor”.
Mike in NC
@schrodinger’s cat: Cheney settled on Chalabi as a pliant lapdog who would do the bidding of the Bush administration. Topple Saddam and his sons, so the arguement went, and Americans would be welcomed as liberators with flowers and sweets, while we quietly went about plundering the Iraqi oil reserves.
But alas, Chalabi wasn’t going to be the new George Washington of the Arab Spring. Merely another grifter who ironically conned the neocons.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Ella in NM: It’s not quite that the most recent post is at the top of every post; it’s that every post starts will all of the things posted more recently.
beltane
@Gravenstone: As “the decider”, W deserves the ultimate blame. In theory, he chose whom to listen to, and as Commander in Chief he was in control of what course of action to take.
schrodinger's cat
The front page now looks like a demon child of several social media platforms and the old Balloon Juice.
Zinsky
Chalabi was a useful idiot for an unelected gang of greedy, evil men. He is in Hell now, where he belongs, hopefully warming things up for Richard Bruce Cheney and Dubya.
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: Yeah, it’s bad. On a slow news night it may have been tolerable, but not when it’s busy like this.
Keith G
@Ella in NM:
Been hittin the cactus juice, have ye?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Brachiator:
Kinda-sorta.
National Security Archive:
They were birds of a feather, all working together for a similar goal (though each had a different ultimate prize in mind). Yes, Bush and his team wanted Iraq, but Chalabi was more than some US version of Baghdad Bob.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
Holy crap, there’s ads everywhere now. Tommy, you’re killing the place.
Gin & Tonic
Shit, the front page is really borked now.
Svensker
Is it just me, or do all the posts have the same text body? Maybe I should try a different browser. Or more drugs. Maybe both!
beltane
The site is almost broken now. TaMara’s FP post with good news has gone completely missing.
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: She pulled it and has now put it back.
PurpleGirl
@Ella in NM: That is an entirely new glitch. That hasn’t happened before. The design team will have to figure out how and why it happened.
mapaghimagsik
Obamacare called and wants its rollout back
/runrunrun
ETA: It turned out beautiful in the end, so there’s hope!