Taking Out Iraq’s Future Leaders
By: emptywheel Saturday January 31, 2009 11:14 am 4
Laura linked to this story on Charles Duelfer's new book. And boy did my hackles rise up when I read this passage:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/30/AR2009013003430.html?hpid=artslotAfter he left the United Nations in 2000, Duelfer went to a Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he began working informally with a unit in the CIA's Near East division, the Iraq Operations Group, which was tasked with regime change.
Duelfer assembled a list of more than 40 high-level officials who could help run Iraq following an invasion. He cultivated old contacts in the oil industry and the Iraqi government, meeting secretly with a top Iraqi official at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. He traveled to Vienna for OPEC meetings that included key Iraqi oil officials. But the plan to put together a team that would form the basis of a future government was shelved.
"Once U.S. forces were in Iraq, they used the lists as targets," he writes. "Those named would find their homes raided, and they would be thrown in jail. . . . We continued to make more enemies."
Basically, the CIA worked with Duelfer to pull together a list of top Iraqis who could take over the country. And--this story doesn't say directly, but suggests--once DOD took over in Iraq, those on the list were targeted for harassment and arrest.
more at:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/01/31/taking-out-iraqs-future-leaders/#more-3513
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