Chalabi, anyone?

Ahmed Chalabi is certainly a survivor. He seems to have as many lives as the neighborhood cat. We all know the lore, how he hoodwinked a bipartisan group of American politicians until the neocons finally removed Saddam. He gave us grandiose tales of torture along with a highly dubious parade of asylum seekers whose information later turned out to be mostly bogus.

So, guess who's coming to dinner? Yep, ole Ahmed. He'll be arriving this week to meet with Condi Rice. It's not anything special (we are told), since several other Iraqi government officials have made visits recently, all for briefings prior to the Iraqi elections in Decemeber.

Chalabi is the left's new pariah. They are trying to paint him as the sole reason Bush went to war, for a variety of political reasons. Now, there are hundreds of artcles available on the web about Chalabi, most probably unfavorable. One thing is certain, Chalabi alone didn't push Clinton into dropping bombs, nor Bush into invading. He didn't push Saddam into attacking Iran and Kuwait, dropping poison gas on his own people, or piling up bodies in mass graves.

We can argue ad nauseum about whether Bush should have invaded or not, but don't let the left sidetrack this debate. I believe they are trying to turn Chalabi into someone more evil than Saddam, because it's a convenient way to wash their hands of all the Saddam demonizing they engaged in leading up to the war. I.E.- Bush and the neocons believed Chalabi, we didn't, but Bush used the bogus evidence anyway. That doesn't explain the hawkish statements from Kerry right up until the tanks rolled, but that's one of those "don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain" things.