America's New Puppet in Iraq : Ahmed Chalabi

Iraq's Next PM? Ahmed Chalabi, Chief Peddler of False WMDs, Meets U.S. Officials As Malaki Falters







Pressure is mounting on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to form a less sectarian government or to resign. A representative of the influential Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for the creation of what he described as a new "effective" government. On Thursday, the New York Times revealed the U.S. ambassador in Iraq, Robert Beecroft and the State Department's top official in Iraq, Brett McGurk recently met with the controversial Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi who has been described as a potential candidate to replace al-Malaki. Chalabi is the former head of the Iraqi National Congress, a CIA funded Iraqi exile group that strongly pushed for the 2003 U.S. invasion. The INC helped drum up pre-war claims that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction and had links to al-Qaeda. The group provided bogus intelligence to the Bush administration, U.S. lawmakers and journalists. We are joined by Andrew Cockburn, Washington editor for Harper's magazine.