Secrets and Lies: Author Dilip Hiro on Chalabi, the CIA and the Battle for Iraq

The June 30 deadline for the so-called transfer of power in Iraq is just weeks away and despite repeated US claims that the interim Iraqi government will have full sovereignty after the handover, it remains unclear what actual power it will have.
A revised UN resolution put forward by the US this week would allow Iraq to oversee its own military and police forces but 140,000 US troops would remain in Iraq and have the power to act at will. The interim government will not have the power to make laws or revoke any laws instituted by the U.S. occupying forces. It is not clear what will happen after June 30th to the thousands of Iraqis who are currently being detained -- many of whom have never been charged with a crime.

U.S. soldiers and contractors will likely remain immune from criminal prosecution and liability in Iraq. Meanwhile under current rules, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations and the Arab Development Bank will supervise an "advisory and monitoring board" that will keep tabs on Iraq's revenues and expenditures. And up to 160 U.S. advisors will continue working in the newly formed Iraqi ministries.

The make-up of the newly selected Iraqi interim government will be led by members of the Iraqi Governing Council which dissolved itself this week and was widely seen as illegitimate by the Iraqi people.

Now, one former Governing Council member and a key Bush administration ally is at the center of an intelligence leak scandal. Reports have emerged that the U.S.-backed Iraqi exile leader, Ahmed Chalabi, disclosed to an Iranian official one of Washington's most guarded secrets about Iran -- that it had broken Iran's top-secret communications code allowing the U.S. to easily spy on Iran's intelligence services.

In addition to the intelligence leak allegations, Newsweek is now reporting that Chalabi may have collected and maintained files of potentially damaging information on US officials in order to blackmail them.

Now the US is now backing another Iraqi exile with CIA ties - The new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, a former Baathist who also has ties to Saudi intelligence.


Dilip Hiro , a veteran journalist on the Middle East. His trilogy of books on Iraq and Iran are considered some of the most definitive histories of the wars in the Persian Gulf. His latest book is called Secrets and Lies: Operation 'Iraqi Freedom' and After.

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