''Get me Wolfowitz!'' Chalabi is alleged to have demanded, when his compound was raided last week, Robert Novak writes in his Monday column. "But it was too late for Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz or anybody else to save the erstwhile American favorite in Iraq."

In fact, Wolfowitz...had signed off on cutting ties with the designated leader of a future democratic Iraq...

The last straw for Chalabi, according to intelligence sources, was the discovery of his contacts with the Iranian regime. The same sources say the wealthy Iraqi Shiite had sent armed agents to harass private citizens. Now that his Iraqi National Congress has lost its $340,000 monthly intelligence subsidy, Chalabi has dispersed his agents around Iraq, according to U.S. military sources...

Chalabi years ago was a CIA resource, but the agency dropped him as unreliable. He then was picked up by the neo-cons as their man in Iraq to replace Saddam Hussein. Richard Perle, who became a leading Rumsfeld adviser after 2000, for years had claimed the ability of the INC to smoothly grasp power in Iraq. On Feb. 16, 2001, on CNN's ''Crossfire,'' he told me the Iraqi dictator could be driven from power without U.S. troops by the INC's ''political challenge to Saddam that will lead ultimately to piercing the veil of his invincibility.''...

Chalabi's previous governmental sponsors developed instant amnesia. Rumsfeld's comment last week after the Chalabi raid displayed the master of obfuscation at his best: ''I certainly was not aware there was going to be a raid on a home, if in fact there was one. My understanding is that the Iraqis are involved in this, and you'd best ask them.''

Instant amnesia indeed. But Perle seems to have it too.

Posted by Laura at May 27, 2004 06:36 AM