[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 146 (Monday, November 7, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H9936-H9937]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AHMAD CHALABI
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Drake). Under a previous order of the
House, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, somebody ought to
call the cops. Today I am not talking about collusion, corruption and
cronyism and the leaking of sensitive classified information that has
irreparably damaged the national security of the United States. No, I
am not talking about Scooter Libby or Karl Rove, though their
involvement in outing a female CIA agent to silence her husband's
criticisms of the President's Iraq policy deserves closer scrutiny.
No, I am talking about another shadowy character and administration
ally, someone whose deception played a large role in leading the United
States into war in Iraq. I am talking about Ahmad Chalabi. Mr. Chalabi
is the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq's newly constituted government.
But Mr. Chalabi also is a convicted bank swindler who, we now know, fed
the Bush administration false intelligence about Saddam's weapons of
mass destruction and capabilities and Iraq's ties to terrorism.
Many Americans remember Mr. Chalabi as a man who convinced Vice
President Cheney that the United States would be greeted as a great
liberator in Iraq. Some have even said it was Mr. Chalabi who promoted
the false story about Iraq's attempted purchase of nuclear material in
Niger. Chalabi fed false stories about Iraq's weapons capabilities to
New York Times reporter Judith Miller, a story that the Times was later
forced to publicly discount.
Mr. Chalabi, who supplied information to the White House Iraq working
group, a mysterious cabal, as Colin Powell's former chief of staff
recently said, that hijacked U.S. foreign policy and hyped the case for
war in Iraq. The bottom line is that Mr. Chalabi played a central role
in the orchestrated deception leading to the invasion of Iraq.
After the administration discovered that Mr. Chalabi provided false
intelligence, instead of investigating, the Department of Defense
attempted to prop Mr. Chalabi up as a candidate of choice in the post-
war Iraq.
Keep in mind what Mr. Chalabi did next. He was suspected of leaking
classified information about U.S. intelligence capabilities to Iran. He
was suspected of telling the Iranians that we had broken the code by
which we were learning information about their activities.
Seventeen months ago, then National Security Adviser Rice promised an
FBI inquiry into who leaked information to Iran. Seventeen months ago,
and yet nothing has happened. Despite the fact that Mr. Chalabi was a
prime suspect, the FBI has never interviewed him. In fact, the Wall
Street Journal quotes the FBI as having said they have little active
interest in this matter. Little active interest in a person who is
leaking intelligence material to Iran in the middle of the war in Iraq?
Just this week the administration invited this criminal to meet with
the Secretary of State and maybe even Vice President Cheney in the West
Wing to discuss his candidacy for the Iraq presidency in this
December's election. I would be curious to learn from the President
what role granting a U.S. entry visa to a man suspected of spying for
Iran plays in the administration's terrorism strategy.
Mr. Chalabi's actions are an insult to every American, especially
those serving in our Nation's Armed Forces, and his high-level visit to
the United States is an additional affront. Chalabi's crimes cannot go
unanswered. He belongs in jail for his misdeeds. Instead, he gets a
White House photo-op.
As the Senate concludes its investigation into the administration's
use of false and misleading intelligence to make the case for war, no
such inquiry would be complete without Mr. Chalabi's testimony under
oath. While he is sashaying around the streets of Washington, D.C., the
Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee may
want to issue a subpoena for his presence. He has offered to testify,
but no intelligence agency of the United States has interviewed him,
nor has the FBI, as we learned today.
He should be detained in this country until he gives that testimony.
I know I speak for all Americans when I say that our idea of democracy
is not propping up a bank swindler, kidnapper and extortionist whose
lies and deceptions contributed to the 14,000 U.S. soldiers injured and
over 2,000 killed in action and is an intractable quagmire with no end
in sight. Americans deserve the truth about the Bush administration's
manipulation of intelligence to justify this tragic war.
Calling the cops to arrest Mr. Chalabi, while he is here, so he can
be interrogated, would be a good beginning to understand how extensive
the manipulation, how false the evidence was, that caused the President
to take us to war and which was championed by the Vice President and
the President and the cabal to try to justify to the American citizens
the reason for this war.
Mr. Speaker, call the cops. Mr. Chalabi should not be allowed to run
free on the streets of this Nation's capital.
[From The Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2005]
Top Secret: Status of Chalabi Inquiry
(By Scot J. Paltrow)
As Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi arrives this
week in Washington for talks, there is little sign of
progress in a Federal investigation of allegations that he
once leaked U.S. intelligence secrets to Iran.
More than 17 months after then-National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice publicly promised a full criminal inquiry,
the Federal
[[Page H9937]]
Bureau of Investigation hasn't interviewed Mr. Chalabi
himself or many current and former U.S. government officials
thought likely to have information related to the matter,
according to lawyers for several of these individuals and
others close to the case.
The investigation of Mr. Chalabi, who had been a confidant
of senior Defense Department officials before the war in
Iraq, remains in the hands of the FBI, with little active
interest from local federal prosecutors or the Justice
Department, these people said. There also has been no grand-
jury involvement in the case.
The investigation centers on allegations that one or more
U.S. officials in early 2004 leaked intelligence to Mr.
Chalabi, including the fact that the U.S. had broken a
crucial Iranian code, and that Mr. Chalabi in turn had passed
the information to the Baghdad station chief of Iran's
Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The assertions about
Mr. Chalabi's involvement came after U.S. intelligence
agencies intercepted a cable from the station chief back home
to Iran, detailing what the chief claimed was a conversation
with Mr. Chalabi about the broken code.
Former intelligence officials said such a leak could have
caused serious damage to U.S. national security. The broken
code had enabled U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor covert
cable traffic among Iranian operatives around the world. The
encrypted cable traffic was a main source of information on
Iranian operations inside Iraq. The leak also threatened U.S.
efforts to monitor any Iranian steps to develop nuclear
weapons. And there was concern that the disclosure could
prompt other countries to upgrade their encryption, making it
more difficult for the U.S. to spy on them.
Mr. Chalabi has strongly denied the allegations. He once
was a close Bush administration ally and a key proponent of
the Iraqi invasion, though he has more recently appeared to
fall from American favor. Before the war, during his long
period as a prominent Iraqi exile, he also cultivated close
ties to the government in Iran, which was his ally in
opposing former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Just this
weekend, Mr. Chalabi made a trip to Tehran to visit Iranian
government leaders.
The handling of the Chalabi investigation so far stands in
contrast to the aggressive inquiry conducted by special
counsel Patrick Fitzgerald into the leaking of intelligence
agent Valerie Plame's name, which led to the indictment of I.
Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff.
Questions about the progress of the Chalabi investigation
also follow the FBI's disclosure last week that it had closed
an investigation into forged documents purporting to show
Iraq had sought uranium ore from Niger. The Niger claim set
off an intense intelligence debate, which was at the center
of the leaking of the intelligence agent's identity.
Whitley Bruner, a former longtime undercover Central
Intelligence Agency official in the Middle East who has
followed Mr. Chalabi's career closely since 1991, said that,
in contrast to Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation, the Chalabi
leak inquiry ``just sort of disappeared.''
FBI spokesman John Miller strongly denied that the Chalabi
investigation has languished. ``This is currently an open
investigation and an active investigation,'' he said, adding
that ``numerous current and former government employees have
been interviewed.''
Mr. Miller said that, because the investigation is an
active one, he couldn't discuss specific individuals nor
comment on how the inquiry is being conducted. A Justice
Department spokesman declined to comment.
Mr. Chalabi's lawyer, Boston attorney John J.E. Markham II,
said neither the FBI nor Justice Department ever responded to
an offer to have Mr. Chalabi come to Washington to answer law
enforcement questions and aid in the investigation. Mr.
Markham made available a copy of a letter he said he had sent
on June 2, 2004, to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and
FBI Director Robert Mueller. It categorically denied that Mr.
Chalabi had leaked any U.S. intelligence. And it stated ``Dr.
Chalabi is willing and ready to come to Washington, D.C. to
be interviewed fully by law-enforcement agents on this
subject and to answer all questions on this subject fully and
without reservation.''
Mr. Markham, a former Federal prosecutor, said that,
ordinarily in a leak investigation, ``the first thing you
would do would be to get the tippee,'' the person to whom the
information was leaked, ``in there and say `Who talked to
you?' '' But, he said, ``That never happened.''
The FBI's Mr. Miller said he wouldn't comment on Mr.
Chalabi but said the FBI, in general, interviews witnesses
when an investigation indicates it is best to do so, not
necessarily at the beginning of an inquiry. He added, ``The
fact that this person or that person has or hasn't been
interviewed yet is just not material to whether there's an
active investigation.''
One likely focus of FBI inquiries would be a small group of
people in the Pentagon and White House who had frequent
contact with Mr. Chalabi and also probably knew the closely
guarded secret of the broken code. Interviews indicate that
many of these individuals haven't been questioned by the FBI.
Among the officials with whom Mr. Chalabi at one time had
close ties, for instance, was Douglas J. Feith, who until
earlier this year was an undersecretary of defense and headed
the Pentagon's powerful office of policy and planning. In an
interview, Mr. Feith said he has never been questioned by the
FBI or federal prosecutors in connection with the
investigation and that if others had been, he was unaware of
it.
Lawrence Di Rita, spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, said in an emailed response to questions that he
had no knowledge of the FBI or federal prosecutors having
questioned current or former Defense Department officials.
``I don't know anything about a [Department of Justice]
investigation in this matter,'' Mr. Di Rita said.
Mr. Chalabi had been considered a trusted ally by
influential figures within the administration, but last
spring those ties appeared to have ruptured. On May 20 of
last year, Iraqi police backed by U.S. troops raided Mr.
Chalabi's headquarters, searching for evidence of corruption
and leaked American intelligence.
Since then, however, the Bush administration has become
more open to dealing with Mr. Chalabi again, spurred on by
his rise in the current Iraqi government, the possibility
that he might become prime minister and his current control
over, among other things, Iraqi oil production.
Mr. Chalabi's visit to Washington this week is his first
since the leak allegations. He is scheduled to meet with
Treasury Secretary John Snow and with Ms. Rice, now secretary
of state. He also is to give a speech to the conservative
American Enterprise Institute.
Senate Democrats have been pressing for an investigation
into the role Mr. Chalabi played in drumming up support for a
war to depose Mr. Hussein. They also are critical of Mr.
Chalabi because of alleged corruption; in 1992, he was
convicted in absentia by a Jordanian court of having
embezzled $288 million from a bank at which he was managing
director. He has strongly denied the corruption allegations.
Spokesmen for both Mr. Snow and Ms. Rice said they were
meeting with Mr. Chalabi, despite past events, because he is
a powerful government figure in Iraq. State Department Iraq
adviser James Jeffery said Mr. Chalabi ``is deputy prime
minister of a critically important country at a critically
important time, he was democratically elected, and it's on
that basis that we see him.''
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