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The great divide in the neocon push-back: Streaking past the others, Richard Perle has now suggested to journalists that the reason Chalabi has been targeted by the White House of late....is because Iran set him up! But Perle didn't have time to talk to Laurie Mylroie to get her on the same page before he spoke. This from the Forward.
One of [Chalabi's] top American allies, Richard Perle, says he thinks the Iraqi leader was actually a victim of a plot between the CIA and Tehran.
In an interview Monday with the Forward, Perle, a leading neoconservative, said that Iran may have suggested to CIA officials that it had received sensitive intelligence from Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress in order to discredit him.
"Iranians are involved in Iraq in a very damaging way, and the last thing they want is Chalabi in power," said Perle, a former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory board to the Pentagon. "They very well may have induced the CIA to believe Chalabi gave them [sensitive intelligence]. And the CIA was certainly very happy to see that."
...Perle claimed the CIA was eager to seize upon Chalabi's reported links to Iran to win over the White House to its long-held opposition to Chalabi. "They have convinced the White House," said Perle, a former Reagan administration official with close ties to the Israeli right. "There is no question [the raid] was a U.S. operation and that it was politically motivated."...
Laurie Mylroie, another strong Chalabi supporter, rejected the notion of an Iran-CIA plot to sabotage Chalabi.
"The Iranians communicated and said nothing regarding Chalabi passing things on," said Mylroie, author of the recent book, "Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror."
"Why should they want to discredit Chalabi?" Mylroie said. "The CIA made it up."
I think it's a bit comical to think that Perle is pushing this idea that the CIA and Iranian intelligence are in such regular contact. I thought that was your friends, Mr. Perle?