A Pentagon spokesman announced that is was suspending the $340,000 a month funding to the Iraqi National Congress and U.S. forces have raided the residence of Ahmad Chalabi along with other offices of Iraqi National Congress (INC). These actions coincide with the fact that the General Accounting Office is opening an investigation into the INC’s use of State Department money.
According to an Associated Press report:Salem Chalabi, nephew of Ahmad Chalabi and head of the Iraqi war crimes tribunal, said his uncle told him by telephone that Iraqi and American authorities "entered his home and put the guns to his head in a very humiliating way that reminds everyone of the conduct of the former regime."
In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Paul Wolfowitz declared that the decision to withdraw the INC’s funding was “made in light of the process of transferring sovereignty to the Iraqi people. We felt it was no longer appropriate for us to continue funding in that fashion.”
According to a report In Newsweek:Intelligence officials outside the Pentagon also have been highly skeptical of the value of intelligence supplied by the INC to the United States. Some U.S. intelligence sources accuse the INC of “dribbling out” information to the Pentagon in order to justify continuing monthly payments to the group of $340,000. Some U.S. officials even accuse the INC, which has its own armed militia, of seizing and maintaining control of Iraqi government and Baath Party documents which should have been turned over to the CIA after the war. These intelligence sources charge that what the DIA has been doing is paying Chalabi and the INC to feed back to the U.S. government documents that the INC “stole” from the Iraqi public.
Data: 20.05.2004, 09:05 Hora Printer Friendly  Email to a Friend 
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