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News Tip: Powell, Tenet Gain Influence Over Iraq Policy

Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi's fall from grace signals a dramatic shift in the Bush administration's Iraq policy, says Richard Stubbing

Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi's fall from grace signals a dramatic shift in the Bush administration's Iraq policy, says a Duke University professor.

The administration in recent weeks has moved away from unilateral actions based on Department of Defense intelligence and now supports Secretary of State Colin Powell's multilateral diplomacy and relies on the CIA's intelligence estimates, said Richard Stubbing, a professor emeritus of the practice of public policy studies at Duke.

"The Department of Defense is paying the price for relying on 'cooked intelligence'," said Stubbing, who from 1974 to 1981 was responsible for the defense and intelligence budgets at the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Stubbing, a former deputy chief for OMB's National Security Division and author of "The Defense Game" (1986, Harper & Row), said the unreliable prewar intelligence provided by Chalabi's sources and his optimistic predictions of post-war conditions were used to justify U.S. war policy and contributed to unrealistic planning for the occupation.

"The CIA and the State Department were highly suspicious of the intelligence Chalabi provided," Stubbing said. "The Pentagon neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Richard Perle look foolish now for swallowing Chalabi's claims and ignoring State Department and CIA objections. They will look even worse if the accusations that Chalabi provided U.S. secrets to Iran prove well founded."

Chalabi acknowledges meeting with high Iranian officials, but denies transferring classified information.

Stubbing compared the "cooked intelligence" provided by Chalabi to such previous intelligence blunders as optimistic Department of Defense forecasts on the Vietnam War in the 1960s, which contradicted more realistic CIA assessments.

"The U.S. paid dearly when it fell for bad intelligence on Vietnam and we're paying dearly now for believing bad intelligence on Iraq," Stubbing said. "Intelligence professionals try to be alert to sources who are eager to provide just the information the customer wants to hear. In the case of Mr. Chalabi, professionals at the State Department and the CIA were right to be skeptical."