The early-morning raid on the home and office of Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi in Baghdad sends "the wrong message" to America's would-be allies in the Arab world, former Pentagon official Michael Rubin tells Insight.

"This is a huge blow to America's prestige," he said. "The message we've just sent is that we do not stand by our allies, that the United States can't be trusted. We've just told Arab liberals and democrats that it's just plain crazy to work with America."

Rubin, who served as an aide to Deputy Undersecretary of Defense William Luti, spoke with Sunni clerics, Shiite professionals and independent Kurdish businessmen in Iraq in the hours immediately after the Baghdad raid Thursday.

"Everyone in Iraq believes that because of U.S. actions, we are now heading for civil war," he says. "We have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory."

Deeply involved in planning for the Iraq war, Rubin tells Insight that he left the government in April out of a sense of frustration.

"This administration has been taking so many hits, many of them based on outright fabrications or on information from 'anonymous intelligence sources,' that I felt I could be more effective on the outside," he says.

Rubin now is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.


[...]

American news reports yesterday gave several variants of the alleged charges against the Chalabi aides, ranging from corruption, fraud and vehicle theft to intimidation and blackmail. But INC sources and Rubin believe there is no doubt that U.S. civil administrator L. Paul Bremer ordered the raid.

"The decision to "cut Chalabi down to size" was taken in Washington," Rubin said, "but the operation against Chalabi originated in Baghdad. There is no doubt that Bremer signed off on this. Basically, Bremer has gone mad. This raid shows the U.S. has not learned the lessons of Abu Ghraib, and is still trying to "humiliate" perceived opponents.

Attempts by Insight to reach Bremer for comment were unsuccessful.

At a press conference in Baghdad after the raids, Chalabi identified one of the individuals allegedly being sought as Aras Habib, his longtime security and intelligence chief. Before the U.S.-led invasion, Habib ran the INC's network of informants within Saddam's regime and identified defectors the INC ultimately helped to escape Iraq.

Chalabi's detractors claim the intelligence provided by those defectors relating to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs was false or fabricated. But in fact, says Rubin, the INC provided intelligence and human sources at a time when the CIA has no assets inside Iraq at all.

"The CIA hates Chalabi because he comes out with information they do not have and that later gets confirmed," Rubin says.

[...]

"The most virulent hatred of Chalabi comes from those who have never met him," he [Rubin] says. "Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA] and U.S. military commanders in Iraq who have worked with the INC have given them stellar reviews. They have used INC intelligence to stop operations by insurgents that were targeting Americans. They have caught insurgents red-handed because of information provided by Chalabi. [Secretary of State Colin] Powell and [Deputy Secretary of State Richard] Armitage appear to place greater value on winning bureaucratic battles in Washington than in saving American lives in Iraq."


[...]

In citing [ormer DIA analyst Pat] Lang as an expert on Iraq, neither CBS nor the Washington Post ever has mentioned that Lang has registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for an Arab government.

"How can somebody working for an Arab government parade about as a neutral analyst?" asks Rubin.