Ahmed Chalabi

By David Swanson

A former member of U.S. military intelligence has decided to reveal what she knows about warrantless spying on Americans and about the fixing of intelligence in the leadup to the invasion of Iraq.

By David Swanson

An interview of Allison Hantschel.

AUDIO 30 Minutes:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/allison.mp3

David: This is David Swanson with Allison Hantschel, the blogger of the blog site, First Draft http://www.first-draft.com , and the author of the book "Special Plans, the blogs on Douglas Feith and the faulty intelligence that led us to war." Allison, it is good to talk to you. How are you doing?

Allison: I’m doing good, thank you so much for having me.

David: And how did you get involved in the topic of Douglas Feith and the intelligence that took us into this war?

By David Swanson

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber have a new book, which is always a good thing; but this one is especially good. It's called "The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq." It's 206 pages and you'll read it in one sitting, because it's more entertaining than the corporate media whose infotainment is the book's focus. While this book is every bit as well researched as Congressman John Conyers' 350-page report "The Constitution in Crisis," it's written as a compelling narrative rather than a list of evidence or a draft indictment. I recommend reading these two works together.

It's no suprise that Rick Santorum is trailing Bob Casey by 20 points in the latest poll. That's because Santorum just can't stop lying, whether the topic is where he lives or why we're in Iraq.

This morning, Santorum told Don Imus that Saddam was training terrorists from "all over the region" at a training camp in Iraq. Imus was appropriately skeptical, saying Saddam's only real link to terrorism was sending money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. But Santorum insisted Saddam trained terrorists in Iraqi training camps.

This is one of the last rightwing "zombie lies" about Iraq, so here's the truth (courtesy of Media Matters) about Salman Pak:

Kevin Drum writes:

AHMED CHALABI UPDATE....Of the many black marks on Ahmed Chalabi's record, the original black mark, his primal sin if you will, was his 1992 conviction for bank fraud in Jordan. Basically, an audit uncovered the fact that Chalabi's Petra Bank was in the habit of loaning huge amounts of money to his own relatives and never bothering to ask for repayment. He fled the country and was eventually convicted in absentia on 31 charges of embezzlement, theft, misuse of depositor funds and currency speculation. Total cost to the Jordanian government was upwards of $300 million.