Chalabi's Conundrum

Ah yes, Ahmed Chalabi.

International banking criminal and Iraqi dissident whose "intelligence gathering" operation was paid $30 million a year for the past ten years or so, in order to both stoke the flames of a neocon-driven Invasion of Iraq, and position himself as its democratic reformist savior turned US pariah, finds himself in yet another confusing postition. Not only did his paltry attempt to raise an army to overthrow Saddam fail [funded and propagandized entirely by the US]; but it turns out that nobody over there voted for him in the recent democratic elections.

What to do, what to do?

When you're Ahmed Chalabi and you don't win an election you don't deserve that's come from an invasion partaken with your false information, you scream these words "ELECTION FRAUD!"

Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi appears to have suffered a humiliating defeat at the recent Iraq polls, according to the uncertified preliminary results.

The news comes just a month after Chalabi had conducted a tour of Washington in an effort to patch up his tattered image in America. Paperwork shows that in November Chalabi’s Washington representative hired a powerful D.C. lobbying firm.

The election results in Iraq may present Chalabi’s ardent U.S. supporters with a quandary: Chalabi, as well as other losing candidates, is alleging fraud in the election, even though the Bush administration hailed the vote as a historic step for democracy in Iraq.

Oh come on, Mr. Chalabi. You were the man that led the US into Iraq! You were responsible for "liberating" your people! Even your campaign posters said so! It couldn't have been that bad:

Out of almost 2.5 million voters in Baghdad, only 8,645 voted for Chalabi.

In the Shiite city of Basra, the results indicate he had an equally dismal showing of 0.34 percent of the vote.

In the violent Sunni province of Anbar, 113 people voted for him.

During the election, Chalabi’s campaign posters proclaimed, "We Liberated Iraq."

The reference was to Chalabi’s role in pushing the United States toward war against Saddam Hussein. Over the years, Chalabi’s group received tens of millions of dollars from the CIA and the State Department.

[Crikey! I nearly got more votes as a write-in contender for County Coroner with no media presence and no declaration of intention to run! Hell, I didn't even know I was running!]

This puts Mr. Bush in a rather interesting position. Chalabi, you see, is involved in a great deal of the pre-war intelligence gathering that led to the war in Iraq, and he was the favored son of the neocons and The Administration. He quickly fell from favor when he couldn't deliver the hearts and minds of the people, as he'd promised, and The Administration has attempted to distance themselves from him.

But he recently, again, met with Secretary Rice in Washington DC, just before the elections. And with Bush backpedaling on the very intelligence in the war ["I was surprised when there weren't WMDs there,"] he risks pedalling all the way back to Chalabi again.

Bush says, of course, that Iraq's elections were historic and unprecendented in the region- but the Iraqi tool who provided the information that led to those elections says the elections were a fraud.

Uh oh. The Golden Child finds himself in a predicament. Problem is- he's built relations with the US- who may cut him off- and with the hardline Iranians- who may welcome him- he knows something of value to them, and his ties to Iran are still under investigation by the CIA.

I'm just so glad we paid this guy $30 million a year. What a great deal. Wise investing.