U.S. talking to Chalabi, originator of WMD lies, while pushing to replace Iraqi leader Maliki

[bigtree]

15. I wanted to post this statement Pres. Obama just made, as a reflection of what I just posted

from WaPo running transcript:


Mr. President. Do you have any confidence in Prime Minister al-Maliki at this point? And can your -- can Maliki bring political stability to Iraq?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: As I said, it’s not our job to chose Iraq’s leaders. Part of what our patriots fought for during many years in Iraq was the right and the opportunity for Iraqis to determine their own destiny and chose their own leaders. But I don’t think it -- there’s any secret that, right now at least, there is deep divisions between Sunni, Shia and Kurdish leaders. And as long as those deep divisions continue or worsen, it’s going to be very hard for an Iraqi central government to direct an Iraqi military to deal with these threats.

And so we’ve consulted with Prime Minister Maliki. And we’ve said that to him privately. We’ve said publicly, that whether he is prime minister or any other leader aspires to lead the country, that it has to be an agenda in which Sunni, Shia and Kurd all feel that they have the opportunity to advance their interest through the political process.

And we’ve seen over the last two years -- actually dating back to 2008, 2009, but I think worse over the last two years -- the sense among Sunnis that their interests were not being served, that legislation that had been promised around, for example, de- Baathification had been stalled. I think that you hear similar complaints that the government in Baghdad has not sufficiently reached out to some of the tribes and been able to bring them into a process that, you know, gives them a sense of being part of -- of a unity government or a single nation-state.



this is what I had to say about Chalabi and de- Baathification:

In an amazing defiance of the rationale for the pimping he provided for Bush and Petraeus' escalation of force, Chalabi was reported to have 'sabotaged' reconciliation efforts with the Batthists (Chalabi as head of Iraq’s 'de-Baathification commission'); the enabling of which was the main argument Bush gave for his escalation of force to Iraq. The NYT reported that, "Chalabi and members of his organization had sabotaged the American-backed plan by rallying opposition among Shiite government officials in southern Iraq, then taking their complaints to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most powerful Shiite cleric."

from the NYT article

. . . The latest effort began this spring with the grandly titled Reconciliation and Accountability Law, a proposal backed by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the senior American envoy in Iraq until April. The draft decreed that all former Baathists who had worked in the government could collect their pensions. It opened government jobs to thousands more, and set a three-month time limit for Iraqi citizens to bring lawsuits against former members of the Baath Party.

Sunnis supported the overhaul, and Shiites and Kurds were expected to fall in line after the Shiite prime minister and the Kurdish president announced the plan on March 26.

But the law was stymied by Ahmad Chalabi, who headed Iraq’s de-Baathification commission. Mr. Chalabi, the former Pentagon protégé, relies on the commission for an official role in Iraq’s government. Having just renovated a spacious office in the Green Zone, he has strongly opposed any effort to weaken his position or the country’s policy on former Baathists.

According to a senior official with the commission, Mr. Chalabi and members of his organization sabotaged the American-backed plan by rallying opposition among Shiite government officials in southern Iraq, then taking their complaints to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most powerful Shiite cleric.

On April 1, Mr. Chalabi visited the ayatollah’s office in Najaf. He later appeared at a news conference, declaring that Ayatollah Sistani told him the law was incomplete and that “there would be other drafts.”

A day later, an aide to the reclusive cleric confirmed that there was “a general feeling of rejection” about the proposal . . .


. . . why are they still talking to this man?