Molly Ivins, 9 April 2003
"Oh good. It looks as though we're going to have as big a fight over postwar plans for Iraq as we did over the war itself. Just what we need, more of everybody being at everybody else's throat. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who seems prepared to run the world, favors one Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, an exile-emigre group, as postwar leader (read figurehead-puppet). Chalabi is bitterly opposed by both the State Department and the CIA. Chalabi has been in exile for four decades and, in 1992, he was convicted on multiple counts of embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars in Jordan after the failure of his bank there. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison. He escaped from Jordan, reportedly in the trunk of a car, and wound up in London. Dick Cheney is also a Chalabi fan. The Iraqi National Congress has received millions in American aid money, but the accounting has been very poor (a familiar story) and quite a bit of the money is unaccounted for. Chalabi favors Savile Row suits.
The Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz choice for "viceroy designate" of Iraq is Gen. Jay Garner, head of the Pentagon's Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. Garner is a retired military man with links to both the international arms industry and a Jewish lobby group. After retiring from the Army, Garner became president of SY Coleman, a defense contractor specializing in military defense technology. He is currently on leave of absence from the company. The problem of Garner's alleged Zionist sympathies is also causing talk: He visited Israel as the guest of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and signed a statement in October 2000 blaming the Palestinian Authority for the violence after the collapse of peace talks and praising the "remarkable restraint" of the Israeli army.
The third member of the triumvirate that Rumsfeld & Co. want to run Iraq is former CIA chief James Woolsey, who said last week that Iraq is the opening of the "Fourth World War" (counting the Cold War as III) and that America's enemies include the religious rulers in Iran, states like Syria and Islamic terrorist groups.
So, we've got a crook, a Zionist and an old spy who thinks this is the beginning of WWIV set to run Iraq. How lucky can the Iraqis get? Is this what we thought we were fighting for?"
"Bush Offers Crooks and Warmongers to Lead Iraq "
From The Independent UK:
Patrick Cockburn, 08 April 2003, "Political Survivor With Connections To Republican Right"
Stewart Payne, 9 April 2003, "Refugees With American Accents Return To Fight For The Peace"
Donald Macintyre, 10 April 2003, "Iraq Run By Iraqis ... 'Whose Iraqis?' "
Raymond Whitaker, 10 April 2003, "Garner Plan Will Divide The Country Into Three Zones"
From The Observer:
Oliver Morgan, 30 March, 2003, "US Arms Trader To Run Iraq"
From The Nation:
David Corn, 4 April 2003, Weblog: "The Pentagon's (CIA) Man in Iraq"
Jason Vest, 15 August 2002, "The Men From JINSA And CSP"
From Commentary Magazine:
Norman Podhoretz, February 2002, "How To Win World War IV"
Washington Speakers Bureau - James Woolsey, Biography and Speeches
More Columns by Molly Ivins
