[A-List] US imperialism: scapegoating Iran, in disarray

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war

· Inquiry into Tehran's role in starting conflict
· Top Pentagon ally Chalabi accused

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday May 25, 2004
The Guardian

An urgent investigation has been launched in Washington into whether Iran
played a role in manipulating the US into the Iraq war by passing on bogus
intelligence through Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, it emerged
yesterday.

Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the
Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour, and pave the
way for a Shia-ruled Iraq.

According to a US intelligence official, the CIA has hard evidence that Mr
Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, passed US secrets to
Tehran, and that Mr Habib has been a paid Iranian agent for several years,
involved in passing intelligence in both directions.

The CIA has asked the FBI to investigate Mr Chalabi's contacts in the
Pentagon to discover how the INC acquired sensitive information that ended
up in Iranian hands.

The implications are far-reaching. Mr Chalabi and Mr Habib were the channels
for much of the intelligence on Iraqi weapons on which Washington built its
case for war.

"It's pretty clear that Iranians had us for breakfast, lunch and dinner,"
said an intelligence source in Washington yesterday. "Iranian intelligence
has been manipulating the US for several years through Chalabi."

Larry Johnson, a former senior counter-terrorist official at the state
department, said: "When the story ultimately comes out we'll see that Iran
has run one of the most masterful intelligence operations in history. They
persuaded the US and Britain to dispose of its greatest enemy."

Mr Chalabi has vehemently rejected the allegations as "a lie, a fib and
silly". He accused the CIA director, George Tenet, of a smear campaign
against himself and Mr Habib.

However, it is clear that the CIA - at loggerheads with Mr Chalabi for more
than eight years - believes it has caught him red-handed, and is sticking to
its allegations.

"The suggestion that Chalabi is a victim of a smear campaign is outrageous,"
a US intelligence official said. "It's utter nonsense. He passed very
sensitive and classified information to the Iranians. We have rock solid
information that he did that."

"As for Aras Karim [Habib] being a paid agent for Iranian intelligence, we
have very good reason to believe that is the case," added the intelligence
official, who did not want to be named. He said it was unclear how long this
INC-Iranian collaboration had been going on, but pointed out that Mr Chalabi
had had overt links with Tehran "for a long period of time".

An intelligence source in Washington said the CIA confirmed its long-held
suspicions when it discovered that a piece of information from an electronic
communications intercept by the National Security Agency had ended up in
Iranian hands. The information was so sensitive that its circulation had
been restricted to a handful of officials.

"This was 'sensitive compartmented information' - SCI - and it was tracked
right back to the Iranians through Aras Habib," the intelligence source
said.

Mr Habib, a Shia Kurd who is being sought by Iraqi police since a raid on
INC headquarters last week, has been Mr Chalabi's righthand man for more
than a decade. He ran a Pentagon-funded intelligence collection programme in
the run-up to the invasion and put US officials in touch with Iraqi
defectors who made claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction.

Those claims helped make the case for war but have since proved groundless,
and US intelligence agencies are now scrambling to determine whether false
information was passed to the US with Iranian connivance.

INC representatives in Washington did not return calls seeking comment.

But Laurie Mylroie, a US Iraq analyst and one of the INC's most vocal
backers in Washington, dismissed the allegations as the product of a grudge
among CIA and state department officials driven by a pro-Sunni, anti-Shia
bias.

She said that after the CIA raised questions about Mr Habib's Iranian links,
the Pentagon's Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) conducted a lie-detector
test on him in 2002, which he passed with "flying colours".

The DIA is also reported to have launched its own inquiry into the INC-Iran
link.

An intelligence source in Washington said the FBI investigation into the
affair would begin with Mr Chalabi's "handlers" in the Pentagon, who include
William Luti, the former head of the office of special plans, and his
immediate superior, Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defence for
policy.

There is no evidence that they were the source of the leaks. Other INC
supporters at the Pentagon may have given away classified information in an
attempt to give Mr Chalabi an advantage in the struggle for power
surrounding the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government on June 30.

The CIA allegations bring to a head a dispute between the CIA and the
Pentagon officials instrumental in promoting Mr Chalabi and his intelligence
in the run-up to the war. By calling for an FBI counter-intelligence
investigation, the CIA is, in effect, threatening to disgrace senior
neo-conservatives in the Pentagon.

"This is people who opposed the war with long knives drawn for people who
supported the war," Ms Mylroie said.