Even Joshua Micah Marshall Can't Help But Imagine Chalabi's Been Set-Up

Okay. So here's the story: Achmed Chalabi told the Iranians that we had broken one of the most important codes they use for transmitting high-level intelligence orders.

So, what did the Iranians then do? They transmitted a message back to Teheran stating that Achmed Chalabi had told them that a certain code and been broken by Americans, and that the Americans were, therefore, reading all traffic in that code.

Okay. Fine. But guess which code they used to communicate this incredibly-sensitive information?

The very same code that the message was informing Teheran had been broken.

Anyone see an, err, problem here?

This is almost childlessly transparent. It's obviously disinformation-- sending false information in an insecure code which you know has been broken and is being read by the enemy.

In fact, the only thing which makes this somewhat believable is that it's so ludicrously transparent that it's almost too obvious it's disinformation, and therefore, maybe, what the hell?, perhaps it's just a colossal screw-up by the Iranians.

I've got no particular love of Achmed Chalabi. But if this is what the CIA thinks is "evidence" against Chalabi, then we've got to clean this agency out from top to bottom.

When even left-wing conspiracy-monger and longtime Chalabi-hater Josh Marshall thinks the evidence is hinky, it's time to reconsider how strong the case against Chalabi is.

Here's Joshy:

A couple thoughts on the charges against Chalabi.

My answer? Good question. I have no idea.

Well. Thanks for clearing that up, O Wise One.

He then goes on to argue that this doesn't make any sense, but it's true anyway.

posted by Ace at 06:15 PM

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