From The Washington Post: “U.S. soldiers raided the home of America’s one-time ally Ahmad Chalabi on Thursday and seized documents and computers.
[…] The Americans also raided other offices of the INC, [Chalabi aide Haider] Musawi said.
U.S. officials declined to comment on the raid targeting a longtime ally of the Pentagon. Privately, however, American authorities have complained that Chalabi is interfering with a U.S. investigation into allegations that Saddam Hussein’s regime skimmed millions of dollars in oil revenues during the U.N.-run oil-for-food program.
[…] “U.S. officials, meanwhile, disputed Iraqi claims that American aircraft bombed a wedding party, killing more than 40 people.”
[…]The U.S. military said Wednesday’s pre-dawn attack near the Syrian border targeted a suspected safehouse for foreign fighters from Syria about 15 miles from the Syrian border.
The desolate region is populated only by shepherds but is popular with smugglers and the U.S. military suspects militants use it as an entry route. It is under constant American surveillance.
But Iraqis said the Americans attacked a wedding party, and the bride and groom were killed.
Lt. Col. Ziyad al-Jbouri, deputy police chief of Ramadi, said the attack happened about 2:45 a.m. in a desert region near the border with Syria and Jordan. He said between 42 and 45 people were killed, including 15 children and 10 women.
Dr. Salah al-Ani, who works at a hospital in Ramadi, 250 miles east of the scene, put the death toll at 45.
“This was a wedding and the (U.S.) planes came and attacked the people at a house. Is this the democracy and freedom that (President) Bush has brought us?” said a man on the videotape, Dahham Harraj. “There was no reason.”
No reason? Why do I doubt that…? But let’s continue:
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the attack was launched about 15 miles from the Syrian border after U.S. forces received “specific intelligence” about foreign fighters slipping into the country.
“We sent a ground force in to the location,” Kimmitt told Associated Press Television News. “They were shot at. We returned fire.”
U.S. soldiers recovered satellite communications gear, foreign passports and a large amount of Iraqi cash at the site, he said.
Ah, yes. One of those weddings. I sent the couple a compact airborne missile defense system. Oh, and a pair of crystal highball glasses.
You re-gifted those highball glasses for sure.
Yup. Who needs ‘em. The bottle has an opening at the top, just like a glass does. And it holds more.
Iraqi wedding –
Something old, something new,
something smuggled, something blew?
I’m quite sure that Raytheon does have a wedding registry a young couple can sign up to.
yet another American “atrocity.” The media is all over it, but I doubt that we’ll hear much about the American ground force being fired on. So, how long until there is another reprisal beheading.
Jeez, it’s like there’s a war on, or something.
You shouldn’t just breeze by the Ahmad Chalabi news. It seems the Bush admin. has come around to the school that holds that he was and is duplicitous, which can only mean that he was, in fact, duplicitous. The left and the paleocons are going to have another field day.
I didn’t breeze by it, Ash. I read about it, then posted excerpts from the story on my website (including a link back to the original WaPo article).
And of course I reserve the right to revisit the story later as more information becomes available to me.
I seem to remember during the debates for the Iraqi Interim Constitution, Chalabi and some other Mullah nutbags walked out when the Iraqi female representatives demanded that Sharia law NOT be used in the constitution, for incredibly obvious reasons.
When he showed more desire to promote Islam than human rights, he probably got crossed off quite a few lists.
Estimated time until his congressional funds are cut off and he becomes politically isolated, weeks at best…..
Well, yeah, you posted a little bit about Chalabi, and then just started talking about the wedding thing in the same post.
It’s your blog. I’m just saying, IMHO, the Chalabi story will turn out to be bigger than the wedding story.
As for Chalabi being unworthy of our support, I concur. But the Bush admin. is going to be hammered for the extent they did trust him at one point, even if that wasn’t much…
Yeah, the WaPo combined the two stories. So I followed suit, like a well-behaved little monkey. As I say, I reserve the right to comment on Chalibi later, as more info comes to light. Think UNSCAM, is my guess.
I so love that I can count on the real news from Protein Wisdom (my tongue is firmly planted in the middle of my mouth).