Chalabi at Cambridge

(Dr.) Ahmed Chalabi spoke at the Cambridge Union Society tonight. He's a good speaker, even if his views are often contradictory, idealistic and obfuscatory.

Here are some of his key quotes:

"The U.S. and Britain chose the wrong reason to justify military action [WMD] ... there were plenty of other good reasons, such as genocide against [sic] people of Iraq."

When asked, based on this statement, whether he supported military intervention in other authoritarian regimes, Chalabi responded, "I never support foreign military intervention." Well you could have fooled me!

"[Iraq] troops are below standard."
"To fight terrorism [in Iraq] we need the US and UK forces to leave us alone."
"So long as foreign troops are in Iraq things cannot get better; if the foreign troops leave, things will get much worse."

When asked, based on these statements, whether he believed foreign troops should leave, he replied, "NO." He never explained why he felt this way, considering that "so long as foreign troops are in Iraq things cannot get better."

One of my personal favorites:
"The occuption powers appointed the first government ... a dream team for intelligence agencies." (my italics)

"The Iraqi police cannot move one battalion of police without the permission of General Casey."

"We wanted to draft a democratic constitution. It is not perfect ... it has many gaps."

"After September 11th, the US government approached us and asked if we knew anyone involved in Iraq's weapons programs ... we found three people ... at no point did we vouch for any information [they] provided."

"We did not want military action [by the US and the UK]"

Does this even need analysis?

Posted by Peter