A few friends have asked what I make of the latest controversy involving Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi political figure. Chalabi has been charged with counterfeiting Iraqi dinars. His nephew, Salem, the man in charge of the tribunal trying Saddam Hussein, has also been charged (perhaps somewhat ironically) with being an accomplice to murder.
I am not following the daily minutiae of the Iraq situation as closely as I used to, and I do not do any reporting of my own anymore. So I cannot say anything with real authority on this. All I know is what I read by other reporters.
What I do know from my past experiences is that there has been a concerted and obviously quite successful effort to discredit Ahmad Chalabi for many years now. This effort has been spearheaded by the CIA and the State Department, aided and abetted by many others. They may have played a role in this latest incident, they may not have. But the judge who charged Ahmad Chalabi is the same man who ordered that his house be raided a few weeks ago, for God knows what reason. This is a man with no legal training whatsoever.
Salem Chalabi is a very fine man with an Ivy League education. He is accomplished in both law and business. He does not strike me as someone who would commit murder. You can never say never because there's always a chance that someone you know and think of as being a good and moral person is actually a very different person than you thought. But I really doubt that this man is a criminal. I really, really doubt it.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:02 PM
