Inside Man

This post from DougJ reminded me of a line from Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book about our invasion of Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority and all the innumerate ways that we fucked that place up enabled democracy to bloom and prosper.

Chalabi is mentioned in a throw-away line from one of the officials in the book, someone who I guess is one of the “good guys,” or at least isn’t one of the obvious villains. This guy says that Chalabi is smarter than everyone in Washington combined. Obviously not in a book smart way, but in a manipulative, getting-everyone-to-do-what-he-wants sort of way. Chalabi did pretty well for himself in the wake of our little adventure. And the last point from DougJ’s post about Fred Hiatt and his crayon scribblers is right on.

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