Chalabi Watch
Ahmad Chalabi pisses me off. Ditto with the media, who are not doing their jobs. It's obvious that the Bush administration and Pentagon fully support Chalabi, or else they would not have brought the man into the country after US forces rolled their tanks into Baghdad. The Project for a New American Century wrote papers praising Chalabi while Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz were members, too. So there's really no question about who the White House would like to run Iraq.

Something that is mentioned frequently, but I still think is underreported, is the fact that Chalabi is a convicted criminal in Jordan. He ran Petra Bank, which was Jordan's third largest bank at the time. Then, "He [Chalabi] was indicted and convicted in absentia, found guilty of siphoning millions of dollars from depositors into his own offshore accounts, a scandal that caused his bank to collapse and convulsed Jordan's financial system." (Source: Toronto Star). Chalabi says that Saddam is to blame for this, and that it's a non-issue.

Bullshit. If Saddam was to blame for this (a claim to which Chalabi has not provided any proof, I guess it's no surprise that the media has not asked him for proof), then how come Jordan still has a warrant for the mans arrest? If this was Saddam's fault, then Saddam should be a moot point now, he's out of power. Chalabi should goto Jordan and clear his name. But he probably won't, because he knows that he's guilty as sin. Hell, Chalabi couldn't face the charges at the time they were leveled against him, he had to flee to Syria! I guess the US supports criminals fleeing to Syria, as long as they are criminals that they like.

So, I have a couple questions to ask that I feel are obvious: why hasn't the media grilled Chalabi for embezzling money?, and why hasn't the media asked the Bush administration if they are afraid of giving billions of dollars in foreign aid to a man who is a likely candidate to steal it and keep it for himself?

Believe it or not, it gets worse. Ahmad Chalabi's two brothers have also been convicted in banking scandals involving another bank and an investment firm, both in Switzerland. Maybe the Chalabi's would like to tell the world that this is also the fault of Saddam.

Is there really any doubt that the man the Pentagon has hand picked to run Iraq is a criminal? Is there any question that if we place this man in a position of power that involves managing billions of dollars that we will send him in foreign aid that he will embezzle some of it? Ahmad Chalabi should be in prison, which is exactly where he would be if the US cared about Iraq.