Huffington And Chalabi
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On Terrorism, WarI arrived at Megu at 11:30 and was led past a phalanx of American security guards (provided, I was told, by the U.S. State Department), to a small, private room where Chalabi, his daughter Tamara (a Harvard PhD who lives in Baghdad and works closely with her father), and a half-dozen members of his entourage were seated. Also there were ABC news investigative reporter Chris Isham and his wife Jennifer, president of the Tribeca Film Festival. Isham has known Chalabi since 1988. When they first met in Washington, Chalabi was trying to convince U.S. officials to force Saddam out of power — but those were the days when Saddam was still our friend.Chalabi looked downright laid-back in a multi-colored sweater that can only be described as Cosby-esque. His group was an hour into their dinner when I arrived, with the remnants of a sushi meal spread across the table. Most were drinking sake but Chalabi (who doesn’t drink) and I (who wanted to keep my wits about me) stuck to green tea.
Everything about him suggested a man in full: smart, articulate, and, above all, totally present. His focus never flagged — not even at 3:30 in the morning when we said good-bye.
You may not like her, but this is worth a read…especially for passages like this:
On the political front, Chalabi kept returning to his life’s goal: to overthrow Saddam. Not because of WMD, he told me, but because of human rights abuses (he gave me a long exposition on Saddam’s mass graves).But I had spent some time researching Chalabi for the posts I wrote last week about his trip to Washington — so what he had actually said in the lead up to the war was still fresh in my mind.
“Saddam is a major threat,” he had said in July 2002. “You have the choice of using military force to liberate Iraq or of having your own civilians killed in the thousands.”
Chalabi may want to rewrite history, but there is no question that he used the WMD threat again and again as a means to his end. And there is no question that Chalabi will now, and in the future, use all means at his disposal to achieve his ends.
He is a man of pure will, a term — just to add to the ironies — used in the screenplay for John Cusack’s next movie, which I was reading while in New York. “Men of pure will operate beyond the realm of judgment,” says one of the characters. “They are like forces of nature…feral and oblivious. They have the morality of an avalanche.”
So what of the future? Where is the avalanche headed?
Incidentally, John Cusack was there too. How odd.
However, it still proves that two people who are on opposite sides of the argument can still sit down and have a reasonable discussion.
Gee, sounds familiar…
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