DIA: INC Used By Iranian Intelligence For Years
Newsday is reporting that The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that the U.S.-funded Iraqi National Congress led by Ahmad Chalabi has been used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the United States. One intelligence source told Newsday “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.” Patrick Lang, the former head of DIA operations in the Middle East, described what Iran did as “one of the most sophisticated and successful intelligence operations in history.”
U.S. Investigates Chalabi Ties to Iran
The U.S. government is also reportedly intensifying its investigation into how the INC’s leader Ahmad Chalabi managed to obtain highly classified Pentagon and CIA material and then pass it on to Iran. According to the New York Times, federal espionage statutes prohibit anyone from knowingly passing classified information to a foreign power, even though, in this case, the United States has supported Chalabi. While Chalabi denies the charge, he admitted on CNN Sunday that in December he met with the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian president, Mohammad Khatami, as well as the Iranian minister of information. Meanwhile Time is reporting that the ex-intelligence chief for Chalabi who has been accused of being an Iranian agent has relocated to Tehran.