# US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 25, 2004, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-intelligence-fears-iran-duped-hawks-into-iraq-war/246960 "2004-05-25T08:15:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2004, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-intelligence-fears-iran-duped-hawks-into-iraq-war/246960/1 "2004-05-25T08:15:40Z")
[US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war](http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1224075,00.html) > [@](#): > > An urgent investigation has been launched in Washington into whether Iran played a role in manipulating the US into the Iraq war by passing on bogus intelligence through Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, it emerged yesterday. > > According to a US intelligence official, the CIA has hard evidence that Mr Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, passed US secrets to Tehran, and that Mr Habib has been a paid Iranian agent for several years, involved in passing intelligence in both directions. > [@](#): > > “It’s pretty clear that Iranians had us for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” said an intelligence source in Washington yesterday. “Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the US for several years through Chalabi.” > [@](#): > > An intelligence source in Washington said the CIA confirmed its long-held suspicions when it discovered that a piece of information from an electronic communications intercept by the National Security Agency had ended up in Iranian hands. The information was so sensitive that its circulation had been restricted to a handful of officials. > [@](#): > > Larry Johnson, a former senior counter-terrorist official at the state department, said: “When the story ultimately comes out we’ll see that Iran has run one of the most masterful intelligence operations in history. They persuaded the US and Britain to dispose of its greatest enemy.” Surely not? Can it be that the hawks were so set on Iraq that they left themselves open to manipulation by Iranian Intelligence? If so, should there not be resignations right up the tree, both sides of the Atlantic? I nominate Blair and every senior intelligence person involved in the dodgy dossiers, which as a cartoon today says, looked dodgy because they’d been translated from the original Persian. It’s not as if Chalabi was not widely known to be an untrustworthy crook so to believe him and his organisation, which had a bright and shining agenda, took some level of wilful blindness in the first place. If true - wow! That was some con. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2004, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-intelligence-fears-iran-duped-hawks-into-iraq-war/246960/2 "2004-05-25T08:17:08Z")
Ooops - despite my check I missed a more appropriate thread for this. My apologies. ---
**Author:** ![gouda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c77e96/32.png) [@gouda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gouda)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2004, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-intelligence-fears-iran-duped-hawks-into-iraq-war/246960/3 "2004-05-25T10:27:01Z")
Which one? ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2004, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-intelligence-fears-iran-duped-hawks-into-iraq-war/246960/4 "2004-05-25T10:38:21Z")
> **[DIA says Iran used INC to get US in Iraq?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=257550)** > > Be honest, who’d saw this twist coming? I don’t klnow if this is going to stand the tests of time or not. So far there’s not much about it. But it’s pretty wild if true. Agency: Chalabi group was front for Iran BY KNUT ROYCE WASHINGTON BUREAU May...