Context of 'October 30, 1944: Ahmed Chalabi Is Born into Elite Iraqi Family'

Ahmed Chalabi. [Source: Tim Sloan / Agence France-Presse]On October 30, 1944, Ahmed Chalabi is born into a wealthy, oligarchic Shiite family with close ties to Iraq’s Hashemite monarchy. [American Prospect, 11/18/2002; CounterPunch, 5/20/2004; New Yorker, 6/7/2004] Chalabi’s mother runs political salons catering to Iraq’s elite and his father loans money to members of the ruling family who reward him with top posts in the government, which he uses to advance his business interests. His grandfather was also close to the monarchy, holding nine cabinet positions in government during his lifetime. [American Prospect, 11/18/2002; New Yorker, 6/7/2004] But it was Chalabi’s great grandfather who, as the tax farmer of Kadimiah, a town near Baghdad, established the family’s grand fortunes. According to Iraqi historian Hanna Batatu, Ahmed’s great grandfather was “a very harsh man, [who] kept a bodyguard of armed slaves and had a special prison at his disposal” where, according to a friend of Chalabi’s, he imprisoned serfs who failed to pay their taxes or produce wheat. “When he died the people of Kadimiah heaved a sigh of relief,” Batatu writes. [Batatu, 2004; New Yorker, 6/7/2004] In 1958, Chalabi’s family will flee Iraq when the Iraqi Communist Party overthrows the monarchy. Decades later, Imad Khadduri, a schoolmate of Chalabi’s, will say: “Ahmed wanted to avenge his father’s ouster and the deprivation of his lands.… Now he’s trying to fit in his father’s shoes.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 123]

Entity Tags: Ahmed Chalabi, Imad Khadduri

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

After the 1958 coup that deposes King Faisal II of Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi, 13, and his family flee to Lebanon because of their close ties to the Iraqi Hashemite monarchy (see October 30, 1944). The young Ahmed then goes to England where he attends boarding school. [American Prospect, 11/18/2002; CounterPunch, 5/20/2004; New Yorker, 6/7/2004]

Entity Tags: Ahmed Chalabi

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Joseph Wilson and Saddam Hussein, during their August 6 meeting. [Source: Joseph Wilson / New York Times]Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, the ranking US diplomat in Baghdad (see July 31, 1990 and August 1-2, 1990), is admitted to an unexpected and impromptu meeting with Saddam Hussein. Wilson, determined not to let Hussein get the better of him in front of the Iraqi photographers present at the meeting, refuses to do anything that could be construed as bowing to Hussein (an effect Hussein is known to strive to create with his “guests”) and is careful not to laugh for fear a picture could be taken out of context by Iraqi propagandists. As Wilson will later recall, “It dawned on me that the last thing in the world that I wanted to be beamed around the world was a picture of me yukking it up with Saddam Hussein.” Hussein proposes a solution to the Iraq-Kuwait conflict, involving the US giving its blessing to Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait (see August 2-4, 1990) and in return promising to provide cheap oil to the US from Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil fields. He also promises not to strike against Saudi Arabia unless that country allows itself to be used as a launching pad for a strike against Iraq. If the US reacts militarily to the invasion, Hussein says, then the US will be responsible for the “spilling of the blood of ten thousand soldiers in the Arabian desert.” Wilson will later write, “There it was then, the carrot of cheap oil coupled with the stick of dead American soldiers.” Wilson, in turn, presses for Hussein to allow foreign citizens in general, and American citizens in particular, to leave Iraq immediately (see August 4, 1990). Hussein asks if such a request indicates that the US is planning to launch its own military response; Wilson responds that he knows nothing of any such plans, but that he intends “to be here so long as there is a role for diplomats to play in resolving this situation peacefully.” The meeting adjourns with nothing being agreed upon; Wilson has no power to negotiate on behalf of the US, Wilson does not trust Hussein to keep any such bargains, and most importantly, the US has not shown any indication of any willingness to allow Hussein to stay in Kuwait. [Vanity Fair, 1/2004; Wilson, 2004, pp. 118-123]

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Joseph C. Wilson

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

The US diplomats at the embassy in Baghdad, led by Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, hold a long and sobering discussion of the possibilities confronting them in the days and weeks to come. They are well aware of the grim fate meted out to several Americans during the 1958 revolution (see 1958), and realize that they, too, may be killed in the near future. As Wilson will later write, they ask themselves: “If, in all likelihood, we were going to die anyway, did we want to go meekly to our deaths delivering useless diplomatic notes to a brutal regime, or did we want to be defiant, treating the Iraqi actions as the outrages they were? We opted for the latter code of conduct. That decision—to stand up and confront Saddam [Hussein] at every opportunity—set the tone at the embassy from that moment on.” Wilson will add: “Months later, after I’d left Baghdad, a psychologist at the CIA told me that the only way to deal with a personality like Saddam’s is to stand up to him: to be defiant, antagonistic, and intimidating. We had not had the benefit of such CIA wisdom back in August, but our instincts were still on the mark.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 126-127]

Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Saddam Hussein inquires about the health of young British hostage Stuart Lockwood, a scene broadcast on Iraqi television and shown worldwide. [Source: BBC]Iraqi officials announce that their forces will hold the citizens from any country threatening Iraq as hostages until the threats are ended. According to US diplomat Joseph Wilson, currently holed up in the US Embassy in Baghdad with his fellow diplomats, staffers, and at least 100 Americans hoping for protection from Iraqi depredations, the Iraqi announcement ends the fiction that Iraq is holding these citizens as “guests” (see August 4, 1990 and August 8, 1990). Still, Saddam Hussein tries to maintain the fiction for the press; in what Wilson will describe as “one notorious television appearance,” Hussein ruffles the hair of a seven-year old British boy, Stuart Lockwood, and asks if he had had his milk that day. Wilson will write, “The scared look on Stuart’s face, and his parents’ equally frightened expressions, chilled viewers worldwide.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 133-134; NationMaster, 12/23/2007]

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Stuart Lockwood, Joseph C. Wilson

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Iraq abruptly announces that foreign women and children are free to leave the country, effectively releasing them as hostages (see August 17-23, 1990). Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, the ranking US diplomat in Baghdad, believes the release was in part precipitated by a humiliating news report from CBS’s Dan Rather. The Egyptian ambassador to Iraq had met earlier with Wilson, and discussed the need for the international community to heighten its propaganda campaign against Saddam Hussein. He noted that a statue of Hussein had recently been erected in Arab Knight Square in Baghdad, replacing a statue of an Arab warrior on horseback. At the same time, Iraqi police had forced businesses around the country calling themselves “Arab Knight” to change their names, telling them “there is only one Arab knight in Iraq and you are not it.” Since Hussein wants to be known as the Arab Knight, the Egyptian ambassador says, maybe the world should point out that true Arab knights do not hide behind the skirts of women or behind little children. Wilson liked the idea and passed it on to Rather, who filed a story containing the insult on August 22. On August 25, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher accused Hussein of “hiding behind the skirts of women.” Wilson will later write, “While we could not confirm that our campaign to humiliate Saddam was responsible for this decision, we were sure that our general strategy of confrontation (see August 8-9, 1990) had contributed to it.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 134-135]

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Dan Rather, Margaret Thatcher, Joseph C. Wilson

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Brent Scowcroft, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a close adviser and friend of former President George H. W. Bush, is becoming increasingly marginalized in the current administration. Realizing he has little real influence in the White House, he goes public with his measured objections to a US invasion of Iraq by publishing an editorial in the Washington Post entitled “Build a Coalition.” Scowcroft reflects on the decision not to invade Baghdad in the 1991 Gulf War (see September 1998), and writes that if the US had then overthrown Saddam Hussein, “Our Arab allies… would have deserted us, creating an atmosphere of hostility to the United States [that] might have well spawned scores of Osama bin Ladens. [We] already hear voices declaring that the United States is too focused on a multilateral approach. The United States knows what needs to be done, these voices say, and we should just go ahead and do it. Coalition partners just tie our hands, and they all will exact a price for their support. Those are the same siren songs of delusion and defeat that we heard in 1990. We can no more succeed in our present campaign by acting unilaterally than we could have in 1990.” If the “war on terror” is to succeed, he writes, it will have to be “even more dependent on coalition-building than was the Gulf War.” Scowcroft finally understands, author Craig Unger will observe, that the neoconservatives are using 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq. “He knew they were going to try to manipulate the president into thinking there was unfinished business” in Iraq, an administration official will recall in 2007. “For [Scowcroft] to say something publicly was a watershed. This was where the roads diverged.” [Washington Post, 10/16/2001; Unger, 2007, pp. 228]

Entity Tags: Brent Scowcroft, Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, Osama bin Laden, Bush administration, Craig Unger, George Herbert Walker Bush

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Retired Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft leads a presidential panel which proposes that control of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency be transferred from the Department of Defense to the head of the CIA, the director of central intelligence (DCI). The plan is favored by the Congressional 9/11 joint inquiry but opposed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. For years experts have argued that the US intelligence community’s 13 disparate agencies—“85 percent of whose assets reside in the Defense Department”—should be consolidated under the head of the CIA. [US News and World Report, 8/12/2002; Washington Post, 8/19/2004]
Intelligence Community Still Focused on Cold War Needs, Scowcroft Finds - Scowcroft, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a close friend and confidant of former President George H. W. Bush, actually revises a report he began before the 9/11 attacks. The report concludes that the US intelligence apparatus had been designed to meet the needs of the Cold War era and should now be overhauled. The 9/11 attacks are evidence of this, Scowcroft believes. The attacks came from rogue Islamist terrorists, not a superpower like China or the old USSR.
Opposition from Rumsfeld, Cheney - But, as Ron Suskind will write in his 2006 book The One Percent Doctrine, Rumsfeld is “strongly opposed” to Scowcroft’s idea, presumably because, by transferring control of the NSA from the Pentagon to the CIA, it would take power away from him. Scowcroft approaches Cheney with the dilemma. Scowcroft is well aware of Cheney and Rumsfeld’s long political partnership, and gives Cheney an easy out. If his proposals are overly “disruptive,” Scowcroft says, “I’ll just fold my tent and go away. I don’t want to… but I’ll be guided by you.” Cheney now has a choice. Knowing this is a battle Scowcroft will not win, he can either call Scowcroft off now and defuse a potential political conflict within the administration, or, in author Craig Unger’s words, he can “send Scowcroft off on a fool’s errand, pitting Bush 41’s close friend, as Suskind noted, against Bush 43’s cabinet secretary [Rumsfeld], who just happened to be Bush 41’s lifelong nemesis (see September 21, 1974 and After). Cheney chose the latter.” Cheney tells Scowcroft to “go ahead, submit the report to the president.” He knows President Bush will listen to Cheney and Rumsfeld’s advice and ignore the report. Unger later notes, “Scowcroft had once been Cheney’s mentor, his patron. Now the vice president was just humoring him.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 225-226]

Entity Tags: National Security Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, Ron Suskind, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George W. Bush, National Imagery and Mapping Agency, Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, Central Intelligence Agency, Brent Scowcroft, Craig Unger, Donald Rumsfeld, George Herbert Walker Bush

Timeline Tags: US Military

Former ambassador Joseph Wilson participates in the annual conference of the American Turkish Council. One of the keynote speakers is Richard Perle, the neoconservative head of the Defense Policy Board and the chief author of the 1996 position paper “A Clean Break,” which argued for the forcible redrawing of the political map of the Middle East (see July 8, 1996). In 1996, Perle had called for the overthrow of the Iraqi government. At the conference, Perle makes the same call. Wilson will later recall being deeply troubled by Perle’s “fire and brimstone” speech. The next afternoon, when Wilson is scheduled to speak, he voices his concerns over Perle’s position. Although he had journeyed to Niger to learn the truth or falsity about the Iraq-Niger uranium claims (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), he has not spoken publicly about Iraq in over a decade. He does so because he urgently feels that Perle’s views need to be countered. “No decision is more important than that to send a nation’s sons and daughters to a foreign land in order to kill and perhaps die for their country,” he will write. “As a democracy, we are all participants in that decision. Not to speak out would amount to complicity in whatever decision was taken.” Wilson tells the assemblage that “if we were prepared to entertain the possibility that in coming year Iraq might be reduced to a chemical, biological, and nuclear wasteland, then we should march in lockstep to the martial music played by Perle; if not, we should think about alternatives to war.” His partner at the podium, former Turkish military commander Cevik Bir, is, Wilson will recall, “even more strident than me in his opposition to military action.” The audience, “largely American and Turkish businessmen, [largely] agreed with us,” Wilson will recall. For his part, Perle has long since departed the conference. Wilson will later write: “As I discovered while debating the issue, the prowar advocates were little inclined to listen to the views of others. They had made up their minds long ago, and now it was a matter of ramming their agenda through the decision-making process.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 291-292]

Entity Tags: Richard Perle, American Turkish Council, Joseph C. Wilson, Cevik Bir

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, having broken his decade-long silence on Middle Eastern affairs just months before (see May 2002), pens an op-ed for the San Jose Mercury News titled “How Saddam Thinks.” Wilson warns of a “bloody American invasion and long occupation of Iraq” if President Bush follows up on his threats of “regime change,” with the United Nations failing to derail the US push for war with forceful weapons inspections.
Crucial Lessons of Desert Shield/Desert Storm - “Both the US and UN approaches are dangerously flawed,” he warns. “They ignore crucial lessons we learned in the Persian Gulf War about how Saddam thinks.” If Bush does go to war, Wilson writes, “Saddam [Hussein] will use every weapon in his arsenal to defend himself,” which may well include chemical and biological weapons. “But,” he continues, “history also shows that the less-confrontational approach favored by some on the Security Council—France and Russia—isn’t likely to work, either. Saddam has, after all, repeatedly flouted UN resolutions and ignored its demands to let weapons inspectors back into the country for almost four years.” Wilson recalls listening to Hussein gloat over the prospect of slaughtering American soldiers during Desert Shield (see August 6, 1990), and the difficulties Wilson and his fellow diplomats encountered in persuading Hussein to release hundreds of foreign hostages intended for use as “human shields” (see August 8, 1990).
Hussein a 'Malignant Narcissist' - Wilson writes that “[w]e learned firsthand… what the CIA psychiatrists have said for years: Saddam is an egomaniacal sociopath whose penchant for high-risk gambles is exceeded only by a propensity for miscalculation. Those psychiatrists, who study the characters of world leaders, believe that he suffers from what is popularly called ‘malignant narcissism,’ a sense of self-worth that drives him to act in ways that others would deem irrational, such as invading neighboring countries. But the trait also makes him highly sensitive to direct confrontation and embarrassment, even as he is contemptuous of compromise.”
Confrontation without War - Wilson found that a confrontational, “in your face” approach worked the best in getting the desired results from Hussein (see August 8-9, 1990). Wilson recommends revisiting the techniques that worked during the 1991 Gulf War, incorporating “[a]n aggressive UN-sanctioned campaign to disarm Iraq—bolstered by a militarily supported inspection process—would combine the best of the US and UN approaches, a robust disarmament policy with the international legitimacy the United States seeks.” Wilson continues: “Our message to Saddam can be simple: ‘You are going to lose your weapons of mass destruction capability either through the inspections or through a sustained cruise-missile assault on the 700 suspicious sites the United Nations has already identified. If you rebuild them, we will attack again. And if you use weapons of mass destruction or attack another country in the region, we will destroy you and your regime.’ The decision to live or die then becomes his to make. The ultimate lesson of the Gulf War may be that when offered the choice, Saddam will sacrifice almost everything before sacrificing his own life or grip on power.” [Mercury News (San Jose), 10/13/2002]
Response - Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board chief Brent Scowcroft (see October 16, 2001 and March 2002) asks Wilson if he can “take [the editorial] over to the White House.” Scowcroft says that White House officials need to hear the views of someone who actually has experience with Iraq and with Hussein. Days later, Wilson receives a note from former President George H. W. Bush indicating that he agrees wholeheartedly with Wilson’s position. The op-ed will also garner invitations from a variety of television news shows for Wilson to appear as a commentator. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 295-297]

Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, George Herbert Walker Bush, Bush administration, Brent Scowcroft, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, United Nations Security Council

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing