Whispers

Laura Rozen does some parsing of the latest on the Chalabi situation, quoting at length from Knight-Ridder & Newsweek pieces. She also reveals that she's hearing the Neocon March on Washington a few days back was actually initiated by Condi Rice rather than directed at her, in an attempt to keep these folks (Perle, Gingrich, Woosley, Pletka) on message, and prevent any straying from the reservation that could prove embarrassing and/or costly to the White House.

Rozen points out, too, that criticism has been directed by Chalabi's supporters not at the White House (from which the decision to cut Chalabi loose must have come...perhaps at the prompting of the British), but at State and CIA. The civil war going on in this administration is plainly evident now and does not bode well for any involved.

What troubles me, however, is the lack of attention being paid as to who within the administration was leaking what classified information to Chalabi, which found its way, in turn, into the hands of Iranian intelligence. Via "senior officials" sourced in the Newsweek piece, we learn:

President Bush and Vice President Cheney were briefed several weeks ago about intelligence indicating that someone in Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress gave the Iranian government "extremely sensitive" and "highly classified" info which could jeopardize U.S. intelligence sources and even "get people killed."

We see the administration now trying hard to distance themselves from Chalabi, and it seems to be a two way street, with the K-R piece referencing an unnamed INC adviser saying that Chalabi hasn't met with any administration officials since the raid on his house last weekend, and that he hadn't met with VP Cheney since before the war began in March 2003.

And to all of this we must now add the choice of Iyad Allawi as prime minister of whatever "sovereign government" can be rustled up in time for the arbitrary (though now written in stone) June 30 date for hand-over. Allawi is a former Baathist, exile and is, too, Chalabi's cousin, though very bitter rival. Allawi has a history, too, with the CIA (largely credited by the neocons as being behind the "spurious allegations" levelled against their boy Ahmed), as Andrew Cockburn details in Salon:

Nevertheless, in 1996 the CIA invested its hopes in a coup against Saddam plotted by Allawi and his INA group. It proved a total bust, perhaps because INA officials in Amman, Jordan, boasted of its imminence to a Washington Post reporter. Whatever the reason, Saddam rounded up all the conspirators he could get his hands on, while sending derisive messages to the CIA reporting his victory.

Licking its wounds, the CIA harbored dark suspicions that Chalabi had betrayed the coup to Saddam, while Allawi went unpunished for his failure. Though his public reputation suffered from the undiluted stream of abuse broadcast by Chalabi's efficient propaganda machine, he retained his supporters both at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and at MI6.

More later. Must watch Zinni v. Perle on Stephanopolous, as well.