Thursday, May 20, 2004
That about wraps it up for Chalabi
This mornings raid on Chalabi's home and office have me thinking. First, that when we don't like what someone in Iraq is doing---even a nominal member of the government, albeit our puppet government---we resort very quickly to force. There's no preliminary dialog, public debate, compromise---just raids, arrest, and our famous jails. That's a bit disturbing, because we are supposedly building a democracy (using the instant mix kit), and this doesn't seem to be a good foundation, unless we hope it will stir up some "founding fathers" in opposition.
I'm no friend to Chalabi. I did not trust him before the war, I was appalled we pushed him so hard against the wishes of the Iraqis, and I am mad he systematically manipulated our rube-in-chief and his Pentagon buddies. But the speed with which he has gone from stipend boy to (apparently) criminal suspect or enemy of the state is stunning. And the public silence from the administration is deafening. No discussion when he was feeding us evidence. No discussion of the findings, leaked to the press, that his evidence was bugus, even trumped up. No discussion of why we were funding and backing him, or why we have stopped.* Everything we know is from private, foreign, or leaked sources, as far as I can remember (though perhaps I'm missing a few examples).
It's just another example of the way in which the admin doesn't want Iraq policy debated in public (TPM had a nice post yesterday on how amazing this is). They don't want outside input. They don't want constructive criticism. They resist oversight that might help insure effective policy making and delegation. And then they have the gall to suggest that investigations of mistakes in Iraq distract from the war. Hello! That is the war! And the Bushies, not Congress or the Dems, are the ones who don't want to talk about it. All Bush and co want to do is run propaganda speeches and ads. But there is not discourse including them. Only a loudspeaker.
*I'm oversimplifying a bit, since one reason they don't talk about Chalabi is the key factions in the Bush admin are sharply divided about him. He's a DoD hero and State goat. But the fact that we can only really understand Us policy on Iraq by following the infighting in the Bush admin is just more evidence that we cannot understand where to take policy now without debating the way the Bush administration is run. Because these are guys who will implement---or mishandle, or sabotage, or subvert---any policy we discuss. And they have their own bureaucratic agendas.
I'm no friend to Chalabi. I did not trust him before the war, I was appalled we pushed him so hard against the wishes of the Iraqis, and I am mad he systematically manipulated our rube-in-chief and his Pentagon buddies. But the speed with which he has gone from stipend boy to (apparently) criminal suspect or enemy of the state is stunning. And the public silence from the administration is deafening. No discussion when he was feeding us evidence. No discussion of the findings, leaked to the press, that his evidence was bugus, even trumped up. No discussion of why we were funding and backing him, or why we have stopped.* Everything we know is from private, foreign, or leaked sources, as far as I can remember (though perhaps I'm missing a few examples).
It's just another example of the way in which the admin doesn't want Iraq policy debated in public (TPM had a nice post yesterday on how amazing this is). They don't want outside input. They don't want constructive criticism. They resist oversight that might help insure effective policy making and delegation. And then they have the gall to suggest that investigations of mistakes in Iraq distract from the war. Hello! That is the war! And the Bushies, not Congress or the Dems, are the ones who don't want to talk about it. All Bush and co want to do is run propaganda speeches and ads. But there is not discourse including them. Only a loudspeaker.
*I'm oversimplifying a bit, since one reason they don't talk about Chalabi is the key factions in the Bush admin are sharply divided about him. He's a DoD hero and State goat. But the fact that we can only really understand Us policy on Iraq by following the infighting in the Bush admin is just more evidence that we cannot understand where to take policy now without debating the way the Bush administration is run. Because these are guys who will implement---or mishandle, or sabotage, or subvert---any policy we discuss. And they have their own bureaucratic agendas.
