Ahmad Chalabi's Decoder Ring

The New York Times reports that, among other things, Richard Perle is a chump. Perle continues to defend Ahmad Chalabi, even after he let the Iranian government know the US had broken the code they use to send secure messages. Ahmad, for his part, denies he did anything wrong, although, interestingly, he didn't refute the specific charges.

Billmon, cutting right to the chase, as usual, thinks this could become the modern equivalent of the Alger Hiss case. However, instead of Hiss going to jail for perjury charges related to passing relatively unimportant documents to Whittaker Chambers, we've got a whole slew of neo-cons facing the possibility that their boy--and their org (the INC)--played them like for fools on a level matched only by suckers falling for a Nigerian email scam.

So, yet another example of our foolish naiivete in our dealings with the Middle East. In fact, I'm beginning to think of the Bush Team as the US equivalent of the new Iraqi security forces--dangerously out of their league when it comes to managing the mess. Consider: Bush himself was a failed businessman. His entire professional life has consisted of bailouts and/or subsidies (when he ran the Rangers). Cheney was the one who made Halliburton respsonsible for handling asbestos claims. In other words, don't think about whether the guys at the top can shoot straight. Think about whether they can even load the weapon without shooting themselves and anyone else in the room.

Bush and Cheney have certainly distinguished themselves in one way: they are by far the most incompetent individuals ever to serve as president and vice-president. Shit, they make James Buchanan look like a statesman.