'Iran had us for breakfast'
2004-05-25 09:43
London - US officials suspect Iran duped the United States into invading Iraq by slipping bogus intelligence to Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC), The Guardian newspaper reported on Tuesday.
"Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq," it said in a front-page dispatch from Washington.
Quoting a US intelligence official, whom it did not name, The Guardian said Chalabi's intelligence chief, Ara Kariim Habibi, had been a paid Iranian agent for several years, "passing intelligence in both directions".
"It's pretty clear that Iranians had us for breakfast, lunch and dinner," it quoted an intelligence source in Washington as saying. "Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the US for several years through Chalabi."
A US official said on Friday the United States is investigating evidence Chalabi gave sensitive information to Tehran, after authorities last week raided INC offices and Chalabi's home in Baghdad, seizing documents, computers, personal belongings and weapons.
Chalabi, whose INC was a Pentagon favourite and a prime source for intelligence about Saddam Hussein's regime, strongly denied in weekend media interviews that he passed sensitive US secrets to Tehran.