US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war

[kalu_miah]

US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war | World news | The Guardian

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

Monday 24 May 2004 21.17 EDTLast modified on Friday 3 October 201404.56 EDT

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.

 

[kalu_miah]

The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, and ... - Aram Roston - Google Books

Intel Agencies Fear Iran Used Chalabi To Lure U.S. Into Iraq - Culture – Forward.com

Intel Agencies Fear Iran Used Chalabi To Lure U.S. Into Iraq
Marc PerelmanJune 4, 2004

American intelligence and law enforcement agencies are investigating the possibility that Ahmad Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile leader, was used by Iranian intelligence to feed Washington false information on Iraq, with the goal of tricking America into deposing Saddam Hussein, Iran’s archenemy, several intelligence sources have confirmed.

Chalabi, once the darling of the Bush administration’s hawkish wing, has been under a cloud of suspicion for the past two weeks, since the Pentagon cut off its funding to his organization, and Iraqi security forces raided his Baghdad home and offices May 20. The New York Times reported Wednesday that American intelligence officials believe Chalabi informed an Iranian official that the United States had broken the secret communications code of Tehran’s intelligence service.

But the far more serious suspicion in intelligence circles is that he passed Iranian disinformation on Iraq to Washington in order to bolster American support for regime change in Baghdad. The allegation was first disclosed May 22 in the Long Island-based Newsday. Expanded accounts have since appeared in the London-based Guardian, the conservative Washington Times and Israel’s mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot.

Chalabi and his supporters have dismissed all the allegations against him as part of a CIA-orchestrated smear campaign. One Chalabi supporter, Danielle Pletka, vice presi- dent of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, called the disinformation charge “the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

But several former intelligence officials told the Forward that the CIA, which has long opposed U.S. support to Chalabi, believes the former Iraqi exile is an Iranian agent and that this might have enabled Tehran to mastermind an intelligence operation of such magnitude.

“The CIA firmly believes that Chalabi is an Iranian agent,” former CIA analyst Larry Johnson told the Forward. “Based on that, I believe Iran used us to carry their water and get rid of Saddam Hussein.”

Asked why the CIA had not raised the issue earlier, Johnson replied that the agency had in fact repeatedly warned U.S. officials about Chalabi’s Iranian connections — but was ignored by the Pentagon. Johnson said CIA Director George Tenet also ignored the warnings of his own analysts, choosing instead to tow the administration’s hawkish line on Iraq.

Officials at the CIA, as well as at the State Department, have long held a skeptical view of Chalabi, who is often cited as the main source for the notion that Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction and U.S. forces would be welcome as liberators by the Iraqi people. But now Chalabi’s enemies are raising the specter that his neoconservative allies in Washington — as well as President Bush — were the unwitting dupes of Iran, one of America’s and Israel’s most dangerous enemies.

Chalabi’s supporters dismiss such claims as implausible conspiracy theories pushed by longtime political enemies with axes to grind. But in recent weeks, several media outlets have published reports lending credence to the claim of deeper ties between Chalabi and Iran.

Newsday’s initial report claimed that the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded that Iran used Chalabi’s intelligence operation to feed false information to Washington. Similar claims then appeared in the Guardian of London and United Press International, whose dispatch appeared in the right-leaning Washington Times. The Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot published a long exposé on the topic on May 28, in its highly respected weekend edition. An article the same day by former Clinton administration aide Sidney Blumenthal, now the Washington editor of the online journal Salon, also pushed the story.

“The Iraqi neocon favorite… has been identified by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency as an Iranian double agent,” Blumenthal wrote. Blumenthal added, “Either Chalabi perpetrated the greatest con since the Trojan horse, or he was the agent of influence for the most successful intelligence operation conducted by Iran, or both.”

Chalabi, a member of the 25-person Iraqi Governing Council, has steadfastly denied allegations that he is an Iranian agent. He repeatedly has accused the CIA of conducting a smear campaign against him in order to settle old scores.

In attempts to raise doubts about the latest accusations against the Iraqi politician, several observers pointed out that most of the stories alleging an Iranian plot have come from sources at the CIA or the Defense Intelligence Agency. Operatives at both agencies have opposed Chalabi since the mid-1990s, and now blame him for passing on fabricated weapons information.

In addition, skeptics argue, it would have made little sense for Iran to lure U.S. troops into Iraq at a time when Tehran already was worried about the American presence in neighboring Afghanistan.

“Interesting, but too baroque and not very plausible,” said Daniel Benjamin, a former Clinton administration official, of the alleged Iranian intelligence plot. “There was more than enough motivation within the administration to invade Iraq.”

Chalabi supporters went even further in their criticism.

“Just because Iran hated Saddam doesn’t mean Saddam was a good guy,” said Pletka. “Chalabi was always up-front about his closeness with Iran. If the U.S. had been more helpful, he may not have needed them as much.”

In an interview with the Forward last week, Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Pentagon’s advisory body and arguably Washington’s most influential neoconservative, claimed that Iran had actually provided clues of its close relationship with Chalabi to the CIA in order to discredit him.

Through much of the 1990s, Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress maintained an office in Tehran while running a U.S.-funded program to gather Saddam Hussein-era documents and provide Washington with informants. Chalabi himself has made no secret about his links to the Iranian leadership, arguing that as Iraq’s biggest neighbor and an opponent of Saddam Hussein, it was natural for him to seek positive relations.

In recent weeks, however, speculation about a closer relationship between Chalabi and Tehran has been fueled by allegations that Chalabi’s intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, was an Iranian agent. The FBI has opened an investigation into whether sensitive U.S. intelligence was indeed passed to Tehran via Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress. Several U.S. officials are said to be under FBI scrutiny for supplying secrets to Chalabi, both at the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad and at the Pentagon, where several of his strongest supporters now work.

“Some in the intelligence community have made a persuasive case that Iranian intelligence used Aras Habib Karim to [lure the United States into Iraq],” an intelligence source said. “Certainly Aras was central in producing the sources who provided so much disinformation to Western countries that then shared their reports, without sourcing, thus providing false confirmation.”

In its May 22 article, Newsday cited intelligence sources claiming that the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that the intelligence arm of the INC had been used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets. The former director of the DIA’s Middle East branch, Patrick Lang, was quoted as saying the alleged Iranian plot was “one of the most sophisticated and successful intelligence operations in history.”

The Clique that Sold Us the Iraq War

The Clique that Sold Us the Iraq War
Almost the entire Iraq-war clique, advocated the war from 1998 on. 9/11 was only a convenient pretext. Amazingly almost all were members of just two organizations: IASPS and PNAC. Both were neoconservative, and there were many links between the two.

IASPS: Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies

• “A Jerusalem-based think tank with an office in Washington, D.C.”
• Began promoting the Iraq war in 1996 by lobbying the Israeli government.
• Richard Perle (later Rumsfeld’s Chairman of Defense Policy Board, delivered “Clean Break” report to Israeli Prime Minister.
• Current views (2010): Obama is the first American president who is a dictator. We should not be surprised if he proves to be the last president.

Members in the Iraq-War clique:
David Wurmser: Middle East advisor to Vice President Cheney
Douglas Feith: Undersecretary of Defense for Policy until 2005.
Richard Perle: First Chairman of Rumsfeld’s Defense Policy Board.
Charles Fairbanks: Former assistant to and college friend of Wolfowitz.

PNAC: Project for New American Century

• The main neocon lobby, it focused first on invading Iraq.
• Founded 1997, by William Kristol & Robert Kagan.
• First action: open letter to Clinton advocating Iraq war.

Members in the Iraq-War clique:
Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton, Libby, Abrams, Wurmser, Perle.

JINSA, The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs

• “explaining the link between U.S. national security and Israel’s security”

Served on JINSA’s Advisory Board: Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton, Perle.

Defense Policy Board

• This board was at the heart of the push for war, from the first days after 9/11.

Membership from 8/16/2001 through and beyond the start of the Iraq war:
Richard Perle, Chairman (American Enterprise Institute), Kenneth Adelman, Newt Gingrich, Henry Kissinger, Dan Quale, James Woolsey, many more.

The Weekly Standard

• Funded by Rupert Murdoch (owner of Fox News and Wall St. Journal).
• Editor: William Kristol, co-founder of PNAC,
  • son of Irving Kristol, the neconservative’s “godfather.”

Elliot Abrams, Deputy Assistant to the President.

• 2002-present, Special Assistant to G.W. Bush

Connections to Iraq-War clique: [#PNAC] with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Libby.

John Bolton: Undersecretary of State

• 1998 Signed PNAC Letters to Clinton, Gringrich, Lott advocating Iraq War.
• 2002 December 19. Contributed false accusation of Iraqi uranium purchase to State Dept. Fact sheet. This accusation had been debunked in March 2002 by Wilson who reported directly to the State Dept. and previously by the ambassador to Niger.

Connections to Iraq-War clique: JINSA Advisory Board as of 1998 with Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle.

Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi who conned the neocons.

• 1956, a secular Iraqi Shiite from a wealthy banking family, left Iraq at age 12.
• 1985, introduced Perle to Wolfowitz.
• 1989, fled Jordan after receiving 22 year sentence for embezzlement.
• 1999, Wurmser says Chalabi one of two mentors concerning the Middle East.
• 2001, PNAC’s Director of Middle East Initiative: “Chalabi may be ideal” to lead opposition. He has his own intelligence service, which dwarfed the reach and understanding of the CIA’s clandestine service.”
• 2002, Fake WMD stories on 60 Minutes. Gets fake bio-weapons stories [Winnebagoes of Death] into the CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate used by Congress to vote on the war, and into Powell’s speech to the UN.
• 2004, April poll in Iraq asks who do you trust: Chalabi 0.6%. Who do you not trust at all: Chalabi 45%, Saddam Hussein 14%.
• 2004, Iraqi police backed by U.S. troops found counterfeit money when they raided Chalabi’s Baghdad house in May. Chalabi said he collected the fake currency in his role as chairman of the Governing Council’s finance committee.
• When finally given a chance to vote in January 2005, Iraqis did not award Chalabi’s party a single seat in the new parliament.
• 2005 Became Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq with authority over Oil for one year.

Connections to Iraq-War clique: PNAC, Perle, Wolfowitz, Wurmser.
Dick Cheney, Vice President.

• 1969-71, Assistant to Rumsfeld, and also 1974–75.
• 1989, Hired Wolfowitz and Libby as Sect. of Defense under the elder Bush.
• 1996-00, Jinsa Advisory Board
• 1997, Signer of founding PNAC “Principles”
• 2001, Championed Wolfowitz and brought in Libby and Wurmser, under G.W. Bush.

Connections to Iraq-War clique: Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Libby, Feith, Bolton, Perle.
Charles Fairbanks: Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Reagan

• Served under Paul Wolfowitz, a college friend.
• Co-authored the IASPS “Clean Break” report with Feith, Perle and Wurmser.

Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (till August 2005)

• 1982-84 Part of Reagan’s DOD, Hired by Perle.
• 1996— JINSA Advisory Board Member
• 1997, Co-authored the IASPS “Clean Break” report to Israel with Fairbanks, Perle and Wurmser.
• Dumbest (expletive) guy on the planet. —General Tommy Franks
• Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man. —Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for Colin Powell
• Outspoken foe of the Oslo peace process and Camp David peace agreement.
• Leading member of the “Office of Special Plans” which relied on Chalabi to feed fake WMD info to the CIA.
• Employed Larry Franklin who was caught passing secrets to AIPAC lobbyists (for Israel), and with 38 Top Secret document in his home.

Connections to Iraq-War clique: Chalabi, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Bolton, Fairbanks, Wurmser

Robert Kagan

• Co-founder with Kristol of PNAC the main neocon lobby.
• Signer of 1998 PNAC letter to Clinton advocating Iraq War.
• His wife, Victoria Nuland, was National Security Advisor to Cheney from July 2003 until May 2005. Focused on Iraq.

William Kristol

• Co-founder and chairman of PNAC
• Son of neoconservative “godfather” Irving Kristol
• Editor of the neocon publication “The Weekly Standard.”

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Chief of Staff to Vice President Cheney

• 1997, Signer of founding PNAC “Principles”
• Told two reporters that covert CIA agent Valerie Plame worked for the CIA
• This was Cheney’s retaliation against her husband, Wilson who accurately reported Niger had not sold Uranium to Saddam.
• Apparently part of a White-House-based plan of retribution/intimidation.
• Jail sentence commuted by Bush

Connections to Iraq-War clique: PNAC with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Abrams.

Richard Perle, Defense Policy Board Chairman for Rumsfeld.

• 1996 Brings IASPS report to Israeli Prime Minister.
• 1970 Overheard discussing classified information with Israeli embassy.
• 1981 Brought Stephen Bryen into Defense Dept.

• (Bryen had already been found passing classified information to Israel. While in the position Perle gave him, supplied Israel with prohibited technology.)

Connections to Iraq-War clique:
1996, IASPS, w/ Wurmser, Feith, Principal author of report explaining why Israel needed Saddam overthrown.
1997→, Member of PNAC with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Bolton, Libby.

Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.

• 1983 Lobbied Saddam for Trans-Iraqi oil pipeline.
• Aware Saddam was using WMD (poison gas) on Kurds during pipeline trip.
• Estimated war would take 5 weeks.
• 1969-71, Office of Econ. Opportunity, Hired Cheney.
• 1974-75, White House, Chief of Staff, Hired Cheney.
• 1996, Running Dole’s campaign for President, meets Wolfowitz.
• 1997—, PNAC (signer of “Principles”) with Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, Bolton, Libby.
• 1998-00 Advisor to Bush campaign, w/ Cheney, Wolfowitz.
• 2001— Sec. of Defense, Brings in Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle.

Paul Wolfowitz, Asst. Sec.of Defense till June 2005

• Wolfowitz–the intellectual godfather of the war–is its heart and soul. (12/29/2003, Time)
• Has worked for it since G.H.W. Bush left Saddam in power.
• A student of neocon gurus Strauss and Wohlstetter.
• Early associate of Perle.
• 1989-93, DOD under Cheney and over Libby.
• 1997, PNAC (Signer of “Principles”) with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Abrams, Bolton, Libby.

James Woolsey, Defense Policy Board Member.
• Former director of CIA 1993-95.

Connections to Other Neocons:
1995—, JINSA (Advisory Board Member) with
Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Bolton
1997—, PNAC with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Bolton, Libby.


David Wurmser, Middle East Adviser to Cheney.

• 1996 Primary author of IASPS report to Israeli Prime Minster on why to remove Saddam.
• 1996 Writes “Coping with Crumbling States,” explaining why U.S. should help Israel remove Saddam.
• Chalabi is “mentor” for writing book on removing Saddam.
• 1999 Publishes book on why Saddam must go and why that’s good for Israel.
• 2001 Adviser to Bolton in State Department.
• 2003 Middle-East Adviser to Cheney.

 

[pakdefender]

Its the other way round , Iran had been collaborating with the US so they figured out Iran's intention then the US baited iran by leaving a vacuum in Iraq and Iran took the bait , now whole of middle east is in flames and ire of gulf states is directed at iran not the US. "Let them kill each other" keeps Israel safe also.

 

[kalu_miah]

Bahrain: Is another Iraq in the making? | Arab News

Bahrain: Is another Iraq in the making?
Abdulrahman Al-Zuhayyan
Published — Sunday 3 November 2013
Last update 3 November 2013 12:08 am

All evidence points to the fact that the theory of “constructive chaos” is at work in Bahrain. One can observe the same political theme and mechanism that were employed in Iraq prior to the US invasion.

Observers may recall prior to the US invasion of Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Shiite opposition groups all of a sudden turned from political dissidents into democratic preachers.

Iraqi dissidents, who were living abroad, were able to convince western powers, particularly the US, that the Shiite population is the majority in Iraq and installing democratic principles in their country, which will automatically put them in power, will create a democratic oasis in the region. The infamous Ahmed Chalabi even lured the Bush administration into believing that the invading US troops would be accorded a warm welcome for helping Iraqis get rid of Saddam’s despotic regime and establishing a democracy. The Bush administration committed strategic mistakes in Iraq particularly in the formation of the post-Saddam government, dissolving the army and other government departments. At the end of the day, one could say the US invasion of Iraq was a failure. The overall planning was flawed and not based on solid knowledge of the Iraqi society. The US apparently overlooked two vital factors: The actual power Iraqi Sunnis possessed; and the concept of democracy as it would be practiced in the entire Middle East. Most probably, Washington listened to the Iraqi dissidents because they said exactly what it wanted to hear to justify its invasion of Iraq. However, Iraqis received the US troops with IEDs (improvised explosive devices) that maimed and murdered thousands of US soldiers; engaged the US in a prolonged war; and turned Iraq into a burning furnace. The chaotic situation in Iraq has no prospect of an end, and is obviously destined to be a massive graveyard for millions of Iraqis — Shiites and Sunnis alike. The Bahrain’s Shiite opposition groups are now doing exactly what the Iraqis once did. They visit the US and European officials and accuse the monarchy of oppression and discrimination against them. Thus, the only possible solution to their plight is a constitutional monarchy. By this way, elections could take place, and since Shiites believe they are in majority they would come to power, ultimately the island of Bahrain would be “yet another” practical democratic oasis in the gulf region that continuously inspires its population to emulate their newly established form of government.

In fact, Shiites in Iraq are not an overwhelming decisive majority. The society is comprised of other ethnic Sunni groups. But the focus is always on Sunni Arabs. Yet, they are a sizable group with familial and intermarriage relations with other Shiite Arab tribes and families. Moreover, they have extended tribal relations in all surrounding countries of Iraq. These extended tribes serve as a supporting cushion politically, economically, socially and militarily. Hence, they are not an isolated small minority group by any measure. In other words, Iraqi Sunnis are a major political force in the society and should have equal share of political power and economic wealth in order for a stable Iraq.

The same thing could be said about the composition of the population in Bahrain. There is no official account of Shiites and Sunnis as both sects are called Muslims in the census. Yet, the opposition claim that Shiites sect is in majority and call for a constitutional monarchy. But do they represent the entire population. There are Arab and non-Arab Shiites in Bahrain. The non-Arab Shiites are mostly of Persian origins and are the most active and vocal with strong affinity with Iran.

Naturally, Sunnis and Shiite Arabs would not favor a constitutional monarchy because they have extended tribes and families in other Gulf countries, specifically Saudi Arabia. On the contrary, Shiites with Persian ethnic backgrounds, who are not actually a decisive majority, would most likely favor that form of government. The reason for this diverging political attitude is due to the second factor that US planners of Iraq invasion had overlooked: a tribal exclusive practice of democracy. Apparently, a few influential US think tanks could not accept the fact that the application of “Constructive Chaos Theory” had failed in Iraq, and are still seeking to apply it in Bahrain as it is within the vital “edge” of Saudi Arabia. This edge holds the largest oil reserves in the world, and where Shiites Saudi minority lives who are believed to be influenced by subsequent events in Bahrain. Positively, those think tanks have also overlooked that if there is anything that Saudis could not ever agree more, no matter what their differences may be; it is the unity of this political structure.

Email: Al_Zuhayyan@Yahoo.com

 

[Hack-Hook]

Come on guts you'll find in anything traces of Iran .
Iran was the only country which was against these attacks.

 

[kalu_miah]

Looks like Iran fooled and used dumb Neocons (mostly Jewish) to remove Saddam and take over Iraq.

Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi who conned the neocons.

• 
  
  
  • 1956, a secular Iraqi Shiite from a wealthy banking family, left Iraq at age 12.
  • 1985, introduced Perle to Wolfowitz.
  • 1989, fled Jordan after receiving 22 year sentence for embezzlement.
  • 1999, Wurmser says Chalabi one of two mentors concerning the Middle East.
  • 2001, PNAC’s Director of Middle East Initiative: “Chalabi may be ideal” to lead opposition. He has his own intelligence service, which dwarfed the reach and understanding of the CIA’s clandestine service.”
  • 2002, Fake WMD stories on 60 Minutes. Gets fake bio-weapons stories [Winnebagoes of Death] into the CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate used by Congress to vote on the war, and into Powell’s speech to the UN.
  • 2004, April poll in Iraq asks who do you trust: Chalabi 0.6%. Who do you not trust at all: Chalabi 45%, Saddam Hussein 14%.
  • 2004, Iraqi police backed by U.S. troops found counterfeit money when they raided Chalabi’s Baghdad house in May. Chalabi said he collected the fake currency in his role as chairman of the Governing Council’s finance committee.
  • When finally given a chance to vote in January 2005, Iraqis did not award Chalabi’s party a single seat in the new parliament.
  • 2005 Became Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq with authority over Oil for one year.

 

[Dalit]

That is pretty old new bro.

 

[kalu_miah]

That is pretty old new bro.

Please look at post #4, Iran is trying to pull another Iraq in Bahrain, that is not old news, it is ongoing. Although I do not support ISIS, but I also do not support Iran using US air power to destroy ISIS. Iran should do this on its own. Iran shouts Death to America, but is the biggest expert to covertly manipulate and use US firepower against its enemies.

That is Iran's impressive track record, which should be a lesson for Sunni's.

 

[Serpentine]

Not a single day goes without this trash.

It was Iraq's 'Sunni' neighbors who hosted one of biggest U.S bases in their soil to facilitate Iraq's invasion. Ironically, Iran was the only neighbour who vocally opposed Iraq war. Iran was also the main country that provided arms for groups fighting against U.S forces, except Al-Qaeda and similar extremists.

@kalu_miah Posting junk from Arab News will not help you to prove a lie as truth. Arab News along with Al-Sharq Al-Qwsat and Al-Arabiya are all Saudi regime mouthpiece and are famous for their garbage published against Iran.

 

[kalu_miah]

Not a single day goes without this trash.

It was Iraq's 'Sunni' neighbors who hosted one of biggest U.S bases in their soil to facilitate Iraq's invasion. Ironically, Iran was the only neighbour who vocally opposed Iraq war. Iran was also the main country that provided arms for groups fighting against U.S forces, except Al-Qaeda and similar extremists.

@kalu_miah Posting junk from Arab News will not help you to prove a lie as truth. Arab News along with Al-Sharq Al-Qwsat and Al-Arabiya are all Saudi regime mouthpiece and are famous for their garbage published against Iran.

Ok, what about all the other posts, they are not from any Arab news sources, they are junk too?

 

[Serpentine]

Ok, what about all the other posts, they are not from any Arab news sources, they are junk too?

So here's the deal, since you will accept any western source as if they are revealed to a prophet by God, I will post news against these so called 'Sunni bloc' from the same western sources, then you should accept them too, okay?

 

[kalu_miah]

So here's the deal, since you will accept any western source as if they are revealed to a prophet by God, I will post news against these so called 'Sunni bloc' from the same western sources, then you should accept them too, okay?

You can quote any source as long its related to the topic of this thread. Whether its credible or not, that is for the reader to judge.

 

[Serpentine]

You can quote any source as long its related to the topic of this thread. Whether its credible or not, that is for the reader to judge.

Since this thread is related to Iraq war, here you are:

First, role of Kuwait:

Ironically, it wasn't Iran who hosted U.S forces during 2 invasions on Iraq, but it's 'Sunni' neghbours.

248,000 soldiers from the United States, 45,000 British soldiers, 2,000 Australian soldiers and 194 Polish soldiers from Special Forces unit GROM sent to Kuwait for the invasion.

And Saudi Arabia:

Acting on the Carter Doctrine's policy, and out of fear the Iraqi Army could launch an invasion of Saudi Arabia, U.S. President George H. W. Bush quickly announced that the U.S. would launch a "wholly defensive" mission to prevent Iraq from invading Saudi Arabia under the codename Operation Desert Shield. Operation Desert Shield began on 7 August 1990 when U.S. troops were sent to Saudi Arabia due also to the request of its monarch, King Fahd, who had earlier called for U.S. military assistance.

UAE, Egypt, Morrocco, Qatar and Pakistan also supported Iraq's invasion in 1991 and provided either troops or funds.


As for post Iraqi invasion:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/iraq-crisis-how-saudi-arabia-helped-isis-take-over-the-north-of-the-country-9602312.html

America's Allies Are Funding ISIS
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now threatening Baghdad, was funded for years by wealthy donors in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, three U.S. allies that have dual agendas in the war on terror.
The extremist group that is threatening the existence of the Iraqi state was built and grown for years with the help of elite donors from American supposed allies in the Persian Gulf region. There, the threat of Iran, Assad, and the Sunni-Shiite sectarian war trumps the U.S. goal of stability and moderation in the region.

It’s an ironic twist, especially for donors in Kuwait (who, to be fair, back a wide variety of militias). ISIS has aligned itself with remnants of the Baathist regime once led by Saddam Hussein. Back in 1990, the U.S. attacked Iraq in order to liberate Kuwait from Hussein’s clutches. Now Kuwait is helping the rise of his successors.

As ISIS takes over town after town in Iraq, they are acquiring money and supplies including American made vehicles, arms, and ammunition. The group reportedly scored $430 million this week when they looted the main bank in Mosul. They reportedly now have a stream of steady income sources, including from selling oil in the Northern Syrian regions they control, sometimes directly to the Assad regime.

But in the years they were getting started, a key component of ISIS’s support came from wealthy individuals in the Arab Gulf States of Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Sometimes the support came with the tacit nod of approval from those regimes; often, it took advantage of poor money laundering protections in those states, according to officials, experts, and leaders of the Syrian opposition, which is fighting ISIS as well as the regime.

“Everybody knows the money is going through Kuwait and that it’s coming from the Arab Gulf,” said Andrew Tabler, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Kuwait’s banking system and its money changers have long been a huge problem because they are a major conduit for money to extremist groups in Syria and now Iraq.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been publicly accusing Saudi Arabia and Qatar of funding ISIS for months. Several reports have detailed how private Gulf funding to various Syrian rebel groups has splintered the Syrian opposition andpaved the way for the rise of groups like ISIS and others.

“The U.S. has made the case as strongly as they can to regional countries, including Kuwait. But ultimately when you take a hands off, leading from behind approach to things, people don’t take you seriously and they take matters into their own hands.”
Gulf donors support ISIS, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda called the al Nusrah Front, and other Islamic groups fighting on the ground in Syria because they feel an obligation to protect Sunnis suffering under the atrocities of the Assad regime. Many of these backers don’t trust or like the American backed moderate opposition, which the West has refused to provide significant arms to.

Under significant U.S. pressure, the Arab Gulf governments have belatedly been cracking down on funding to Sunni extremist groups, but Gulf regimes are also under domestic pressure to fight in what many Sunnis see as an unavoidable Shiite-Sunni regional war that is only getting worse by the day.

“ISIS is part of the Sunni forces that are fighting Shia forces in this regional sectarian conflict. They are in an existential battle with both the (Iranian aligned) Maliki government and the Assad regime,” said Tabler. “The U.S. has made the case as strongly as they can to regional countries, including Kuwait. But ultimately when you take a hands off, leading from behind approach to things, people don’t take you seriously and they take matters into their own hands.”

Donors in Kuwait, the Sunni majority Kingdom on Iraq’s border, have taken advantage of Kuwait’s weak financial rules to channel hundreds of millions of dollars to a host of Syrian rebel brigades, according to a December 2013 report by The Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank that receives some funding from the Qatari government.

“Over the last two and a half years, Kuwait has emerged as a financing and organizational hub for charities and individuals supporting Syria’s myriad rebel groups,” the report said. “Today, there is evidence that Kuwaiti donors have backed rebels who have committed atrocities and who are either directly linked to al-Qa’ida or cooperate with its affiliated brigades on the ground.”

Kuwaiti donors collect funds from donors in other Arab Gulf countries and the money often travels through Turkey or Jordan before reaching its Syrian destination, the report said. The governments of Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have passed laws to curb the flow of illicit funds, but many donors still operate out in the open. The Brookings paper argues the U.S. government needs to do more.

“The U.S. Treasury is aware of this activity and has expressed concern about this flow of private financing. But Western diplomats’ and officials’ general response has been a collective shrug,” the report states.

When confronted with the problem, Gulf leaders often justify allowing their Salafi constituents to fund Syrian extremist groups by pointing back to what they see as a failed U.S. policy in Syria and a loss of credibility after President Obama reneged on his pledge to strike Assad after the regime used chemical weapons.

That’s what Prince Bandar bin Sultan, head of Saudi intelligence since 2012 and former Saudi ambassador in Washington, reportedly told Secretary of State John Kerry when Kerry pressed him on Saudi financing of extremist groups earlier this year. Saudi Arabia has retaken a leadership role in past months guiding help to the Syrian armed rebels, displacing Qatar, which was seen as supporting some of the worst of the worst organizations on the ground.

The rise of ISIS, a group that officially broke with al Qaeda core last year, is devastating for the moderate Syrian opposition, which is now fighting a war on two fronts, severely outmanned and outgunned by both extremist groups and the regime. There is increasing evidence that Assad is working with ISIS to squash the Free Syrian Army.

But the Syrian moderate opposition is also wary of confronting the Arab Gulf states about their support for extremist groups. The rebels are still competing for those governments’ favor and they are dependent on other types of support from Arab Gulf countries. So instead, they blame others—the regimes in Tehran and Damascus, for examples—for ISIS’ rise.

“The Iraqi State of Iraq and the [Sham] received support from Iran and the Syrian intelligence,” said Hassan Hachimi, Head of Political Affairs for the United States and Canada for Syrian National Coalition, at the Brookings U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha this week.

“There are private individuals in the Gulf that do support extremist groups there,” along with other funding sources, countered Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a Syrian-American organization that supports the opposition “[The extremist groups] are the most well-resourced on the ground… If the United States and the international community better resourced [moderate] battalions… then many of the people will take that option instead of the other one.”

Iraq crisis: How Saudi Arabia helped Isis take over the north of the country - Comment - Voices - The Independent

How far is Saudi Arabia complicit in the Isis takeover of much of northern Iraq, and is it stoking an escalating Sunni-Shia conflict across the Islamic world? Some time before 9/11, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once the powerful Saudi ambassador in Washington and head of Saudi intelligence until a few months ago, had a revealing and ominous conversation with the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove. Prince Bandar told him: "The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will be literally 'God help the Shia'. More than a billion Sunnis have simply had enough of them."

The fatal moment predicted by Prince Bandar may now have come for many Shia, with Saudi Arabia playing an important role in bringing it about by supporting the anti-Shia jihad in Iraq and Syria. Since the capture of Mosul by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) on 10 June, Shia women and children have been killed in villages south of Kirkuk, and Shia air force cadets machine-gunned and buried in mass graves near Tikrit.

In Mosul, Shia shrines and mosques have been blown up, and in the nearby Shia Turkoman city of Tal Afar 4,000 houses have been taken over by Isis fighters as "spoils of war". Simply to be identified as Shia or a related sect, such as the Alawites, in Sunni rebel-held parts of Iraq and Syria today, has become as dangerous as being a Jew was in Nazi-controlled parts of Europe in 1940.

There is no doubt about the accuracy of the quote by Prince Bandar, secretary-general of the Saudi National Security Council from 2005 and head of General Intelligence between 2012 and 2014, the crucial two years when al-Qa'ida-type jihadis took over the Sunni-armed opposition in Iraq and Syria. Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute last week, Dearlove, who headed MI6 from 1999 to 2004, emphasised the significance of Prince Bandar's words, saying that they constituted "a chilling comment that I remember very well indeed".

He does not doubt that substantial and sustained funding from private donors in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to which the authorities may have turned a blind eye, has played a central role in the Isis surge into Sunni areas of Iraq. He said: "Such things simply do not happen spontaneously." This sounds realistic since the tribal and communal leadership in Sunni majority provinces is much beholden to Saudi and Gulf paymasters, and would be unlikely to cooperate with Isis without their consent.

Prince Bandar bin SultanDearlove's explosive revelation about the prediction of a day of reckoning for the Shia by Prince Bandar, and the former head of MI6's view that Saudi Arabia is involved in the Isis-led Sunni rebellion, has attracted surprisingly little attention. Coverage of Dearlove's speech focused instead on his main theme that the threat from Isis to the West is being exaggerated because, unlike Bin Laden's al-Qa'ida, it is absorbed in a new conflict that "is essentially Muslim on Muslim". Unfortunately, Christians in areas captured by Isis are finding this is not true, as their churches are desecrated and they are forced to flee. A difference between al-Qa'ida and Isis is that the latter is much better organised; if it does attack Western targets the results are likely to be devastating.

The forecast by Prince Bandar, who was at the heart of Saudi security policy for more than three decades, that the 100 million Shia in the Middle East face disaster at the hands of the Sunni majority, will convince many Shia that they are the victims of a Saudi-led campaign to crush them. "The Shia in general are getting very frightened after what happened in northern Iraq," said an Iraqi commentator, who did not want his name published. Shia see the threat as not only military but stemming from the expanded influence over mainstream Sunni Islam of Wahhabism, the puritanical and intolerant version of Islam espoused by Saudi Arabia that condemns Shia and other Islamic sects as non-Muslim apostates and polytheists.







Dearlove says that he has no inside knowledge obtained since he retired as head of MI6 10 years ago to become Master of Pembroke College in Cambridge. But, drawing on past experience, he sees Saudi strategic thinking as being shaped by two deep-seated beliefs or attitudes. First, they are convinced that there "can be no legitimate or admissible challenge to the Islamic purity of their Wahhabi credentials as guardians of Islam's holiest shrines". But, perhaps more significantly given the deepening Sunni-Shia confrontation, the Saudi belief that they possess a monopoly of Islamic truth leads them to be "deeply attracted towards any militancy which can effectively challenge Shia-dom".

Western governments traditionally play down the connection between Saudi Arabia and its Wahhabist faith, on the one hand, and jihadism, whether of the variety espoused by Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida or by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's Isis. There is nothing conspiratorial or secret about these links: 15 out of 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, as was Bin Laden and most of the private donors who funded the operation.

Sir Richard Dearlove

























The difference between al-Qa'ida and Isis can be overstated: when Bin Laden was killed by United States forces in 2011, al-Baghdadi released a statement eulogising him, and Isis pledged to launch 100 attacks in revenge for his death.

But there has always been a second theme to Saudi policy towards al-Qa'ida type jihadis, contradicting Prince Bandar's approach and seeing jihadis as a mortal threat to the Kingdom. Dearlove illustrates this attitude by relating how, soon after 9/11, he visited the Saudi capital Riyadh with Tony Blair.

He remembers the then head of Saudi General Intelligence "literally shouting at me across his office: '9/11 is a mere pinprick on the West. In the medium term, it is nothing more than a series of personal tragedies. What these terrorists want is to destroy the House of Saud and remake the Middle East.'" In the event, Saudi Arabia adopted both policies, encouraging the jihadis as a useful tool of Saudi anti-Shia influence abroad but suppressing them at home as a threat to the status quo. It is this dual policy that has fallen apart over the last year.

Saudi sympathy for anti-Shia "militancy" is identified in leaked US official documents. The then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in December 2009 in a cable released by Wikileaks that "Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qa'ida, the Taliban, LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan] and other terrorist groups." She said that, in so far as Saudi Arabia did act against al-Qa'ida, it was as a domestic threat and not because of its activities abroad. This policy may now be changing with the dismissal of Prince Bandar as head of intelligence this year. But the change is very recent, still ambivalent and may be too late: it was only last week that a Saudi prince said he would no longer fund a satellite television station notorious for its anti-Shia bias based in Egypt.

The Sunni Ahmed al-Rifai shrine near Tal Afar is bulldozed


The problem for the Saudis is that their attempts since Bandar lost his job to create an anti-Maliki and anti-Assad Sunni constituency which is simultaneously against al-Qa'ida and its clones have failed.

By seeking to weaken Maliki and Assad in the interest of a more moderate Sunni faction, Saudi Arabia and its allies are in practice playing into the hands of Isis which is swiftly gaining full control of the Sunni opposition in Syria and Iraq. In Mosul, as happened previously in its Syrian capital Raqqa, potential critics and opponents are disarmed, forced to swear allegiance to the new caliphate and killed if they resist.

The West may have to pay a price for its alliance with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, which have always found Sunni jihadism more attractive than democracy. A striking example of double standards by the western powers was the Saudi-backed suppression of peaceful democratic protests by the Shia majority in Bahrain in March 2011. Some 1,500 Saudi troops were sent across the causeway to the island kingdom as the demonstrations were ended with great brutality and Shia mosques and shrines were destroyed.

An alibi used by the US and Britain is that the Sunni al-Khalifa royal family in Bahrain is pursuing dialogue and reform. But this excuse looked thin last week as Bahrain expelled a top US diplomat, the assistant secretary of state for human rights Tom Malinowksi, for meeting leaders of the main Shia opposition party al-Wifaq. Mr Malinowski tweeted that the Bahrain government's action was "not about me but about undermining dialogue".

Iraqi leader al-MalikiWestern powers and their regional allies have largely escaped criticism for their role in reigniting the war in Iraq. Publicly and privately, they have blamed the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for persecuting and marginalising the Sunni minority, so provoking them into supporting the Isis-led revolt. There is much truth in this, but it is by no means the whole story. Maliki did enough to enrage the Sunni, partly because he wanted to frighten Shia voters into supporting him in the 30 April election by claiming to be the Shia community's protector against Sunni counter-revolution.

But for all his gargantuan mistakes, Maliki's failings are not the reason why the Iraqi state is disintegrating. What destabilised Iraq from 2011 on was the revolt of the Sunni in Syria and the takeover of that revolt by jihadis, who were often sponsored by donors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates. Again and again Iraqi politicians warned that by not seeking to close down the civil war in Syria, Western leaders were making it inevitable that the conflict in Iraq would restart. "I guess they just didn't believe us and were fixated on getting rid of [President Bashar al-] Assad," said an Iraqi leader in Baghdad last week.

Of course, US and British politicians and diplomats would argue that they were in no position to bring an end to the Syrian conflict. But this is misleading. By insisting that peace negotiations must be about the departure of Assad from power, something that was never going to happen since Assad held most of the cities in the country and his troops were advancing, the US and Britain made sure the war would continue.

The chief beneficiary is Isis which over the last two weeks has been mopping up the last opposition to its rule in eastern Syria. The Kurds in the north and the official al-Qa'ida representative, Jabhat al-Nusra, are faltering under the impact of Isis forces high in morale and using tanks and artillery captured from the Iraqi army. It is also, without the rest of the world taking notice, taking over many of the Syrian oil wells that it did not already control.

The Shia Al-Qubba Husseiniya mosque in Mosul explodesSaudi Arabia has created a Frankenstein's monster over which it is rapidly losing control. The same is true of its allies such as Turkey which has been a vital back-base for Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra by keeping the 510-mile-long Turkish-Syrian border open. As Kurdish-held border crossings fall to Isis, Turkey will find it has a new neighbour of extraordinary violence, and one deeply ungrateful for past favours from the Turkish intelligence service.

As for Saudi Arabia, it may come to regret its support for the Sunni revolts in Syria and Iraq as jihadi social media begins to speak of the House of Saud as its next target. It is the unnamed head of Saudi General Intelligence quoted by Dearlove after 9/11 who is turning out to have analysed the potential threat to Saudi Arabia correctly and not Prince Bandar, which may explain why the latter was sacked earlier this year.

Nor is this the only point on which Prince Bandar was dangerously mistaken. The rise of Isis is bad news for the Shia of Iraq but it is worse news for the Sunni whose leadership has been ceded to a pathologically bloodthirsty and intolerant movement, a sort of Islamic Khmer Rouge, which has no aim but war without end.

The Sunni caliphate rules a large, impoverished and isolated area from which people are fleeing. Several million Sunni in and around Baghdad are vulnerable to attack and 255 Sunni prisoners have already been massacred. In the long term, Isis cannot win, but its mix of fanaticism and good organisation makes it difficult to dislodge.

"God help the Shia," said Prince Bandar, but, partly thanks to him, the shattered Sunni communities of Iraq and Syria may need divine help even more than the Shia.

Who's Funding ISIS? Wealthy Gulf 'Angel Investors,' Officials Say - NBC News

'Martyrs' In Iraq Mostly Saudis

 

[kalu_miah]

Since this thread is related to Iraq war, here you are:

First, role of Kuwait:

Ironically, it wasn't Iran who hosted U.S forces during 2 invasions on Iraq, but it's 'Sunni' neghbours.



And Saudi Arabia:



UAE, Egypt, Morrocco, Qatar and Pakistan also supported Iraq's invasion in 1991 and provided either troops or funds.


As for post Iraqi invasion:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/iraq-crisis-how-saudi-arabia-helped-isis-take-over-the-north-of-the-country-9602312.html




Iraq crisis: How Saudi Arabia helped Isis take over the north of the country - Comment - Voices - The Independent




Who's Funding ISIS? Wealthy Gulf 'Angel Investors,' Officials Say - NBC News

'Martyrs' In Iraq Mostly Saudis

1991 Iraq war and ISIS are both off topic. The topic is 2003 invasion of Iraq and Iran's covert role via Iranian agent Chalabi.

 

[revojam]

Not a single day goes without this trash.

It was Iraq's 'Sunni' neighbors who hosted one of biggest U.S bases in their soil to facilitate Iraq's invasion. Ironically, Iran was the only neighbour who vocally opposed Iraq war. Iran was also the main country that provided arms for groups fighting against U.S forces, except Al-Qaeda and similar extremists.

Bullshit your country opened its airspace to NATO forces for Iraq and Afganistan invasion at 2001.Right before invasion a draft brought to Turkish parliment failed to pass in Turkey this draft was about allowing US forces to station and start invasion of Iraq from Turkish soil as well as Turkish Army participation in it.After draft failed to pass two times US decided start invasion from Gulf instead Turkey.But to get Afganistan from Gulf they needed Iranian airspace and your goverment of that time(2001) happily provided them.So much for being enemy of Great Satan.