Chalabi-Iran ties

From Knut Royce of Newsday:

The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has been used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets, according to intelligence sources.

"Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program information to provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source Friday who was briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions, which were based on a review of thousands of internal documents.

I don't know what to make of this. It's one thing to say Chalabi was getting cozier with Iran, which people like Juan Cole have been noting for some time. It's quite another thing to say he was working with and/or manipulated by Iran for "years."

This is not to say that I wouldn't put this past Chalabi. I am a bit worried, though, that some people might jump on this news to conjure the narrative that we were duped into war, and not actively bludgeoned by an administration hell-bent on launching a "New American Century."

And on a related note, someone needs to find out what the Times' Judy Fearmonger and her media colleagues think of these Chalabi developments.