It’s always been my understanding that Chalabi shared with neoconservatives the goal of overturning Saddam’s regime but was actually a loose cannon who found purchase in their agenda by default, not a champion of it specifically.
So why would Newsweek paint him as “the darling of these top Pentagon officials” who claim they were unaware Chalabi’s ticket was about to be punched by the Bush administration? After all, I haven’t read of govt. agents raiding the offices of Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, or Richard Perle.
Newsweek is also running a poll asking if the raid means that neoconservatives have fallen into disfavour with the Bush administration. I think it means one or two will be scapegoated to give the impression that everything wrong in Iraq is their fault and will be corrected by their terminations or transfers to other positions. But if “they” have truly fallen into disfavour, Fred Kaplan‘s following question will be answered:
One question: Is the stuff he gave Iran real—or is it as fake as the stuff he gave us? We’ll soon find out. The FBI is on the trail of how he got the secrets to begin with. If the hunt leads back to his pals in the Pentagon, we may soon see a scandal that dwarfs Abu Ghraib.
And the broad goals for Iraq that George outlined in his speech last night would not be a continuance of neoconservative policies. It seems to me that Chalabi is the one butting heads with the neoconservatives, not the Bush administration.