The Manipulator

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In a detailed profile of Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress, Jane Mayer includes some fairly candid admissions by Francis Brooke, the INC's PR guru. Without Chalabi, he says, "This war would not have been fought. ... We thought very carefully about this, and realized there were only a couple of hundred people" in Washington who were influential in shaping policy toward Iraq - people like Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle and Dick Cheney. During the Clinton years, the INC targeted conservatives with what Brooke describes as "naked politics": "We took a Republican Congress and pitted it against a Democratic White House. We really hurt and embarrassed the President." Following 9/11, his marketing strategy switched to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction: "I sent out an all-points bulletin to our network, saying, 'Look, guys, get me a terrorist, or someone who works with terrorists. And, if you can get stuff on WMD, send it!'" Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that former Pentagon advisor Richard Perle, former CIA director James Woolsey, and a few other Washington influencers met recently with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to complain about the "smear campaign" they say is being waged against Chalabi.