Chalabi denies leak allegations
WASHINGTON – Former Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi and his supporters denied Wednesday that he gave Iranian officials classified information indicating the United States had cracked Iran’s secret communications codes. Members of Congress sought more details about Chalabi’s alleged actions.
Chalabi, a longtime favorite of some in the Pentagon, is at the center of a controversy over whether he leaked the closely guarded information about methods used by the United States to spy on Iran.
Government officials said the FBI was investigating who in the U.S. government provided Chalabi the information, a potential criminal offense that could have damaged American efforts to monitor Tehran’s activities.
Among the individuals the FBI is looking at are Pentagon officials assigned in the last year to be liaisons between Chalabi and the U.S. government, a law enforcement official said Wednesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was sensitive and part of an investigation.
In Najaf, Iraq, Chalabi told the Associated Press that the reports he leaked the highly classified information are “false” and “stupid.”
“Where would I get this from?” Chalabi asked. “I have no such information. How would I know anything about that? That’s stupid from every aspect.”
Chalabi’s defenders have used the unattributed nature of the allegation of a leak to Iran to suggest they are part of a baseless smear campaign.
Richard Perle, a former Pentagon adviser now with the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, said he finds it inconceivable that Iran’s top intelligence official in Baghdad would have used a compromised channel to tell Tehran that the United States was reading its communications, as has been reported. U.S. intelligence reportedly intercepted that message, which indicated Chalabi had provided the information.
“The idea that the Iranians, having been informed that their codes were broken, would then use their broken codes back to Iran is absurd,” Perle said. “It is so basic of a mistake . . . It is comparable to a math teacher instructing a student that two and two is five.”
Congressional aides said members of the Senate Intelligence Committee received a briefing Wednesday on Chalabi. The aides also spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was classified.
House Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., said he has never had a great deal of confidence in Chalabi. He wouldn’t comment directly on whether his committee, too, was inquiring into Chalabi’s actions. However, he said, “I would say that the oversight has worked well in matters relating to Mr. Chalabi.”
The CIA and some in the State Department have been suspicious of Chalabi’s information and allegiances for some time. He provided intelligence sources to the Bush administration about weapons of mass destruction, used to justify the U.S. war against Iraq, but his information came under major criticism after no weapons were found.
Chalabi, a member of the handpicked Iraqi Governing Council, has also been accused of meddling in an investigation into Iraq’s oil-for-food program during the regime of former President Saddam Hussein.
A spokesman for Chalabi, Entifadh Qanbar, said Chalabi’s group, the Iraqi National Congress, welcomed any congressional investigations because it had nothing to hide.