http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_03_28.php#002775
Not quite there, but working on it. Latest development is how he’s somehow the owner of the old Iraqi secret police files.Have to agree with this:
With all the multiple and mushrooming investigations of Chalabi and possible wrongdoing he may have committed, rather than continue to give him taxpayer dollars, perhaps we might better spend our time considering how to take him into custody while we’re still the sovereign authority in Iraq and have it within our power.
If I had to bet money on Iraq’s future over the next decade, I’d put it on a Chalabi dictatorship. Sure, there might be trappings of democracy…
You’re dreaming. Chalibi is a manipulative weasle but he doesn’t have what it takes to run Iraq - muscle and support. Once he figured out who had it, al Sistani, he suddenly wasn’t America’s best lil buddy anymore. It’d served its purpose and still provides cash money but he’s angling to be Sistani’s middleman in dealing with the U.S. My bet is Chalibi is dead as soon as the U.S. leaves regardless of what sort of government or civil war is installed.
Heh, hadn’t thought of that. Then again, I don’t think Saddam started out with a ton of backing…
He was actually something of a hero or at least made himself look that way. As a young man he had a part in an attempted assassination on the previous strongman ruler of Iraq. After it failed he fled to Egypt which was then thick in the throes of anti-Colonial Nasserism. I’m unclear on the details but eventually the old dictator was overthrown and the Pan-Arabist Baathists came into power - Saddam was either with them or invited back in after the fact. Either way he was greeted as a hero of the revolution and got a good position in the new government.
Over time he worked his way up into the number two spot and all the while perfecting his techniques of intimidation and coersion against his patron’s foes. He also, because of his access to the halls of power, gained quite a large body of supporters, including his clan and its allies, that benefitted from his largess. When the old President was replaced, and I think he simply resigned one day but was really ruling in name only, Saddam assumed openly what he’d been practicing for years now. Total control of Iraq. Whatever dissident voices were left were openly killed to terrorize his opponents. Most famous is the footage of that scene of their national assembly where he calls out names of ‘traitors’ in the hall who are, for the most part, quietly shuffled out to be immediately shot.
That’s alot different than being armed and flown in by the great protector of Israel.
