US Tries to Stop Chalabi from Embarrassing Bush

[Theophylact]

a little bit too late.

They unleashed this dog; let them try to chain him up.

[J-Excel]

They're asking for too much personal info for registration. What's the gist of the story?

[Theophylact]

After supporting Ahmad Chalabi for years, the United States has grown disenchanted and made a serious effort during the past two weeks to rein in the former Iraqi exile leader, pressing him specifically to stop embarrassing President Bush with calls for a speedy handover of power in Baghdad, according to senior U.S. officials.

Administration officials are questioning his credibility and growing increasingly concerned about the positions he is taking on Iraq's future.

National security advisor Condoleezza Rice confronted Chalabi in a meeting last week in New York with him and two other members of the Iraqi Governing Council, and again Tuesday in Washington, on recent statements calling for greater Iraqi control over both political power and the economic reconstruction, the sources said.

"She was instructed to tell him to behave. She stressed how unhelpful it was for Iraqis to be enunciating positions that were personally embarrassing for the president, who was the strongest advocate of a new regime in Baghdad," said a senior U.S. official. "She was blunt."

The Bush administration's pressure on Chalabi, a Shiite Muslim, comes as he increasingly emerges on the world stage as the face of the new Iraq, speaking at length before the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday on behalf of the 24-member Governing Council.

Until recently, Chalabi, who had not lived in Iraq since 1958, had been the political favorite of many in the Bush administration, with top Pentagon policy-makers backing him to lead postwar Iraq. Chalabi, born in 1945 to a wealthy banking family, was airlifted by U.S. military forces into southern Iraq in early April and was eventually selected to serve on the Governing Council, whose members were appointed in July after weeks of discussions with the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

In a crucial meeting of Cabinet-level officials shortly before the president spoke at the United Nations on Sept. 23, even Pentagon officials conceded that Chalabi had gone too far and was endangering American efforts, U.S. officials said.

In recent talks with Middle East leaders, Bush has expressed anger — in tough language — at Chalabi and his political lieutenants for undermining the U.S. effort to return stability to Iraq, according to Arab and U.S. officials.

There's lots more.

Seriously, you should register with both the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times; whatever your politics, you can't be fully informed if you don't have access to them. (The Washington Post, too -- but it doesn't require that you register.)

[shahani]

Interesting.

[SiliconJon]

What hits me in the face with a big whistle and red light:

...with top Pentagon policy-makers backing him ...

The Pentagon is full of insane [er, M.A.D.] mofos.