Was Chalabi Part of the Cheney Energy Task Force?

Ahmed Chalabi has been accused of a lot. He was tried for bank fraud in Jordan, he was supposedly the source of “bad intel” on Iraq. And the guy is also purportedly a spy for the US, Iran, or perhaps both. So when he continues to suggest he might become the “first prime minister of a free Iraq” you begin to wonder. Just what is going on here?

After the collapse of Enron, there was talk that Ken Lay had attended a secret energy task force headed by Dick Cheney in March of 2001. There’s no dispute that this task force existed or that they eventually made a recommendation in May of that year. However, when the Government Accountability Office attempted to audit the records from those meetings, Cheney declined, citing executive privilege. Other interested parties such as the National Resources Defense Council, and Judicial Watch joined the litigation fray which produced some documents but not all of them. The US Supreme Court ultimately upheld the right to Cheney’s privilege even though Justice Antonin Scalia and Dick Cheney went duck hunting in Louisiana aboard Marine One while the case was under advisement. Up to know, conventional wisdom is that big energy executives such as Ken Lay and Enron got together with Cheney in the smoke-filled room and hashed out major payola. End of story.

Judicial Watch is quick to point out that one of the disclosed documents it has are maps of Iraq’s oilfields. Bush commissioned the panel on January 30, 2001 after blackouts in California. However, most of the emails revealed to the public are from the middle of March. At the same time, it was clear the Iraqi National Congress leader was visiting Iran, not Washington. It is also true that Cheney had a heart operation earlier in month that still leaves February and April of ’01 as unaccounted for. The British-based ‘Guardian’ reported that Chalabi was in Washington DC on February 16, 2001 to meet with Assistant Secretary of State of Middle and Near East Affairs Edward Walker. He was actually a Clinton appointee who was replaced by June of that year. Ostensibly this is because the Bush Administration had decided to pay Chalabi money again to help his “insurgent” activities against Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime. But is it possible that Chalabi really was there to discuss the Administration’s plans to attack Iraq?

Could it be that actually the “energy task force” was really a cover for nascent plans to attack Iraq? Chalabi’s continued involvement with the US makes this harder to deny. His presence also begs the question just what else was deliberately withheld? One email the NRDC points out only says “what are we going to do about the natural gas problem?” Russia had the largest proven reserves as of 2003, but it is followed by Qatar and Iran. Each of these countries dwarfs national reserves in Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and even Venezuela. There is evidence the coup against Hugo Chavez was American-supported, and the Pentagon has built permanent bases in Uzbekistan. Where both of these decisions made as a result of the “energy task force” too?

Perhaps the scariest part of this is that Cheney and company already know what the rest of the script is. The rest of us just don’t. We have to wait it out and see what happens next.