That Chalabi, is there anything he can’t lie about?
The Miami Herald reports:
WASHINGTON – Despite nearly a year of searching, the Navy has no new intelligence to resolve the fate of a Navy pilot who was shot down on the first night of the 1991 Persian Gulf War and is still missing, the Navy’s top admiral said Tuesday.
Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher’s FA-18 Hornet was shot down in western Iraq on Jan. 17, 1991. Speicher, 33, originally was listed as killed in action, but the Defense Department changed his status to ”missing-captured” in January 2001, after Iraqi defectors claimed that Speicher had survived the crash.
The Bush administration used alleged sightings of the Navy pilot, some of which were provided by Ahmad Chalabi’s exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, to help bolster the case for invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein.
[snip]
But a senior administration official, who also asked not to be named, said
all the defectors who provided information about Speicher came from
Chalabi’s INC.According to the official, one defector told Pentagon officials: “I know
where he is. I know he is alive. I know which prison he is being held in.
Give me a special forces team, and I will go in with them and get him.” [Emphasis added]
If you can’t give me a special forces team, he then added, just give me 100,000 soldiers and we can at least get Saddam and become heroes.
[Thanks to Blair for the link.]
Wednesday night’s NBC had a Lisa Meyers report on the company that got a huge contract for “the rebuilding of Iraq” because it came in with a bid something like a third of the next-lowest bid. Experts–people in construction, not Military-Industrial Complex sorts–looked at the specs and said it’s impossible to even buy the SUPPLIES for the price bid, much less ship them, pay labor, etc.
Myers looked further at some of the “subcontractors”, which proved not to exist.
The company’s ownership proved somewhat complicated to decypher but tracked back to …you guessed it, Chalabi.
BTW best wishes at having to endure the joys of medical treatment, the next funnest thing to flying on a regular basis. Just remember that you will likely be exposed to strong medications, so if Bush starts sounding sane or sensible, ask them to cut back the dosage a tad. 🙂