Anyone else think this Chalabi code thing is fishy?

[Stuckinthebush]

So the story goes that Chalabi was told by a drunk Pentagon official that the US had Iranian codes and had been decoding messages from Tehran.

Chalabi then tells his Iranian agent contact in the US about the breaking of coded messages at which time this agent sends a coded message to Iran telling the government that Chalabi said that the US can now read the coded messages. This is then how the US knew that Chalabi revealed information gained from an American official.

Hello?!

I don't know if I believe that Iran would have a high level agent in the US who was that stupid.

Anyone else a little suspicious here?

[democracyindanger]

1. It's definitely bizarre

But simple stupidity can't be automatically ruled out.

[movonne]

2. I wonder if who he was talking about...Cheney, didn't he used to be

a drunk...several DUI'S.

[htuttle]

3. Haven't you ever read any John Le Carré?

Spy games get complicated!

[Stuckinthebush]

4. True...it is never as it seems...

Hmm.....

[ewagner]

18. LeCarre' -esque for sure

There are so many different players with so many different motivations that's it's hard to tell what is really going on here.

The only way the CIA would bust the story about the broken code is if the infor needed to be put out for a bigger purpose. Otherwise the info release is a pure intelligence disaster.

In short, I don't know what this is all about....can't quite get my head around it yet.

[ChompySnack]

5. Perhaps Iran wanted the political fallout

What better way to know if the code is broken than send the message in the code. Chalabi is a UK citizen, what could the US do legally to him? Nothin.

It was a US official that broke the law, for Iran it is win-win-win!

Verify the info, bust a Bush insider and damage the Iraq rebuilding process.

[Stuckinthebush]

6. Sneaky spies....

You may be onto something here. Of course, that would out their contact with Chalabi.

[htuttle]

8. Wouldn't be the first time an intelligence agency burned a source...

...on purpose.

[Stuckinthebush]

10. True

Perhaps he had lived out his usefulness to them.

[KissMyAsscroft]

7. According to the story...

He told his Iranian contact in Iraq about the code. The US than intercepted the code sent from the Iranian agent in Iraq to Iran.

[Stuckinthebush]

9. So the Iranian Iraq agent is the stupid one, not the Iranian US agent...

Getting more believable...but still....

[Pale_Rider]

11. I' suspecting that it may be justification ...

... to now declare war on Iran. The Iranian was quoted as saying that 'he' thought Chalabi was blowing wind since the Iranian code was supposed to be one of the most secured codes in the Middle East.

[Spazito]

12. I can't figure out what is true and what is spin...

this octopus has so many arms, it's hard to tell what the real story is, imo.

[sampsonblk]

20. Let's wait a few days

Bush ship is leaking bad. Sooner or later, the rest of the story about Chalabi will come out. I suspect Tenet's "resignation" will be connected somehow.

[Old and In the Way]

13. Yes, I think Chalabi is being burned.

But I don't think it's this administration. Perle was voicing support of him last week. I think it's CIA that are doing this dude in because they know he's bad news for US interests, Bush interests be damned.

The fact that Iran made a statement supporting Chalabi leads me to think he truely is an asset of Iran....and CIA made a very good decision to burn him. He's a Cheney-class criminal.

[Stuckinthebush]

14. So what really happened?

An intentional leak to Chalabi by the Pentagon?

A foolish spy really did tip off the CIA that someone had talked?

No leak whatsoever, but misinformation by the CIA to burn Chalabi?

None of the above?

[Old and In the Way]

19. Well, with Tenet's resigning today.....

Maybe it was the WH who burned this intel channel. With the recent posts that Chalabi was collecting dirt on this administration, it could be the WH who decided to pull the plug on this intel source. Perhaps they were concerned that hard evidence against this administration's war profiteering in Iraq could be picked up and used against them.

Gawd, this is playing out like a daily John La carre novel....

[GreenArrow]

15. it's pure, raw, unadulterated

bullshit.

[Iceburg]

16. Bush says in Meet The Press ramble " I sat down with ..and Chalabi ..."

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=28200
snip
Russert: If the Iraqis choose, however, an Islamic extremist regime, would you accept that, and would that be better for the United States than Saddam Hussein?

President Bush: They're not going to develop that. And the reason I can say that is because I'm very aware of this basic law they're writing. They're not going to develop that because right here in the Oval Office I sat down with Mr. Pachachi and Chalabi and al Hakim, people from different parts of the country that have made the firm commitment, that they want a constitution eventually written that recognizes minority rights and freedom of religion.

/snip

June 1, 2004
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: "Chalabi? My meetings with him were very brief. I mean, I think I met with him at the state of the union and just kind of working through the rope line, and he might have come with a group leaders. But I haven't had any extensive conversations with him. "
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I guess Bush forgot that he sat down with Chalibi (and said that he sat down with Chalibi in the oval office and hammered out a few details regarding Iraq) ... can only remember standing in a line with the feller.
The Bullshit Grinder is in overdrive.

[Stuckinthebush]

17. Here is the question for Bush...

"So, Mr. President, which one of these statements was a lie?"