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The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi

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Brilliant! Aram Roston provides an excellent investigative, well researched, intelligent profile of Ahmad Chalabi and the US war in Iraq.

The Man Who Pushed America to War is essential reading for those in the foreign policy, intelligence and defense communities. In the future, The Man Who Pushed America to War will be mandatory reading for all students of history, US foreign policy decision making during the Bush administration and especially, anyone trying understand what the US was doing in Iraq and why.

Roston reveals a masterpiece of grand manipulations by this entire cast of characters who brought the US to war in Iraq. In addition, Roston reveals a sensitivity and appreciation for the historical complexities of life in the Middle East and in Iraq. As a result - Roston captures the adventurous, free-wheeling tragic comedy of US involvement with Chalabi and the eventual war in Iraq.

With more investigative reports like Roston's, hopefully good intelligence on all parties seeking war would either prevent unnecessary wars or at least allow an educated hard decision. Roston's The Man Who Pushed America to War is a valuable contribution to the historical review of Chalabi and the US war in Iraq.

As a member of the Intelligence Community, I have been following the public discussion of the Iraq WMD debacle for years with keen interest. I remember using some of the Iraqi National Congress reports in a paper that I wrote while attending graduate school, and I now realize that the "facts" I had relied on were fictions.

This is why I was eager to read this book, but when I got it in the mail and looked on the back for who had endorsed it, my heart sank. That's because the two endorsers featured there are Seymour Hersh and James Bamford. Given Seymour Hersh's own problems with using tainted sources for his various articles and books, it was not encouraging to see him extolling the virtues of this book. James Bamford's endorsement was even more disturbing because it was so over the top.

So I thought I was going to be reading a leftist screed (it is ironic that some of the books attacking the decision to go into Iraq for getting it wrong on Iraq are sometimes just as blinkered as the reasoning and "intelligence" that got use there).

But I was pleasantly surprised at the tone of the book. It was not over the top like Bamford's endorsement, and it was not laden with questionable "sources" like Hersh employs. Rather I would characterized the tone as one of mixed wonder at Chalabi's success, chagrin at his negative impact on US interests, and mild amusement at it all as well.

For me, the best parts of the book are the ones dealing with the financial shenanigans that --correctly in my view-- got Chalabi a criminal conviction for financial crimes in Jordan. What he was up to in the --for him-- bleak years in the 1990s was also quite interesting as was the discussion of his success in manipulating key US opinion makers, pundits, and journalists.

This being said: the book is not perfect. The sourcing starts getting rather thin near the end of the book (there are only a couple of hundred endnotes all told and given the facts and controversial nature of the book, there should be a lot more). Another thing the author did on several occasions was state things like "It's clear the Iranians got more out of Chalabi than the US did" without specifying any evidence for making that conclusion. Finally, the author is unfair in his criticism of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). This is a non-profit that translates and publishes a good deal of the anti-American, pro-terrorist commentary circulating in Arab world. The author concedes that MEMRI does some service by doing that but then complains that MEMRI only presents the bad...that an equivalent for the Arab and Islamic world would be a service that only translated Pat Robertson, Ann Coulter, and other Americans' lurid diatribes.

That is not really a fair comparison. MEMRI plays up the negative, but the author's contention that there is just as much "crazy talk" in America as there is in the Arabic world is very, very unfair to the US. People like Coulter and Robertson are the exception and not the rule in the US. Contrast this with Egyptian television broadcasting a miniseries about based on the anti-semitic screed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And it's not fair to Coulter or Robertson, who crazy as they may be are not advocating violence like many "talking heads" in Arab language media.

Bottom line: The book is well worth reading, and I can only hope that the US will never get itself entangled with Chalabi again. But you never know...

Ahmad Chalabi is certainly one of the more fascinating characters to emerge from the complex story of the U.S. involvement with Iraq. Even his detractors acknowledge his intelligence and disarming charm. He emerges from this book as an extremely clever operator who has very fuzzy ethical standards and a talent for manipulation. His entire family appears to have had a tradition of shady dealings and dubious financial activities. Yet it is hard for the reader not to admire the resilience and ability to work the system of this MIT trained Professor of Mathematics turned international entrepreneur cum Iraqi patriot.

As Roston himself acknowledges, Chalabi did not "push" America into Operation Iraqi Freedom. But it does appear that with the help of conservative scholar Bernard Lewis Chalabi became deeply involved with the American Enterprise Institute and developed a following within the neo-conservative wing of the current administration, to include even Vice President Cheney. Of this group, Richard Perle appears the most steadfast Chalabi loyalist. One of the group, David Wurmser, even wrote a book, "Tyranny's Ally" that was apparently quite influential among some circles that promoted Chalabi as an Iraqi nationalist who was friendly to the U.S., and its Near East interests. And it is no secret that the neo-conservative wing definitely was in favor of a second war with Iraq.

In the period prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom (the second U.S.-Iraqi War), Chalabi and the organizations he created were funded by, CIA, State Department, and finally DIA. Each eventually stopped funding when accounting `irregularities `surfaced in the activities that he undertook for these government entities. Chalabi definitely appears to be allergic to normal government auditing procedures. Always one to hedge his bets, Chalabi also appears to be an agent of the Iranian Government and a confident of the anti-American Shiite Cleric Muqtada al Sadr.

As Roston makes abundantly clear, the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom was a decision made by the administration for their own reasons and that Chalabi really had little more than a supporting role in this decision. Yet he has managed to maintain his latest role as a person of consequence in Iraq who promises to complicate U.S. dealings with Iraq for years to come.

Roston does a great job of explaining Chalabi, who has a life of many facets, none of which is simple. The formative event is this 13 year old's response to the family's loss in the 1958 revolution in Iraq.

I was surpised that the "Dr." is a PhD in math from the University of Chicago. This is the only straightforward achievement on his resume. Once he left the field of mathematics to become a banker the convoluted tale of intrigue begins.

Roston explains problems with the Chalabi family's Petra Bank in a way that every reader can understand. The legal wake of the Petra fiasco trails him but never catches him. Roston presents, in a clear chronology how Chalabi went from the bank loss (or was it?) to an international political career.

Despite Chalabi's criminal status he's able to charm the neo-cons in the US. They buy his line that Saddam must be overthrown and that with an invasion of 2000 troops, the problem will be feeding the defecting Iraqi army. The book details how neocons provided him access resulting in various government agencies giving him funds. Eventually his US taxpayer funded advocacy created a congressional resolution making the overthrow of Saddam official US policy. This led to war for the US and wealth for the Chalabi family.

The book raises so many unanswerable questions. What was it about the neo-cons that made them susceptible to Chalabi's message? Who, really, is the omnipresent Francis Brooke, who with his wife and kids live with Chalabi? Why was Chalabi's criminal status never presented by the US media? Why were WMD stories not fact checked? Does Chalabi really stumble into his political career? Does he do it for the money? Does he do it for revenge on the Baathists? Does he do it for his Shiite identity? Or does he do it because he can?

The story of Chalabi is surely not over, but a book like this helps to put some light on who he is.

After hearing Mr. Roston speak briefly on The Daily Show I knew I had to get this book; And it didn't disappoint!

This book provides a view into the power circles of The United States and Middle East as well as the lead-up to action in Iraq that few have ever spoken about.

Whether you agree with the invasion of Iraq or not, this book should be required reading for its insight into how we were lead in the direction of war.

Ahmad Chalabi was born in 1994 into an era in which Iraq was soon to be considered a central front in the war on communism, with the U.S. supporting a despot eventually overthrown en route to Saddam Hussein. Today, Iraq is now viewed as the new central front in the War on Terror, floundering after the U.S. invasion and removal of Saddam.

Chalabi was raised amidst a pocket of wealth in an environment of poverty; the 1958 revolution against the U.S. supported leader cost Chalabi's family much of their wealth and they were forced into asylum in Britain. Chalabi, however, suffered little - attending private American schools, and graduating with a mathematics PhD from the University of Chicago.

Ahmad then taught mathematics at the American University in Beirut, but soon left during the 1975 Lebanon War to run the family bank in Beirut, and then start/run another in Jordan. Eventually the bank in Jordan was closed (not making required deposits in the central bank, 40% of loans were not being repaid, short on capital, multiple insider deals, cooked books, illegal trading in third-world currencies, etc.), and Chalabi convicted of a number of wrongs.

Chalabi then fled to England and ran a bank security firm started with funds from the Jordan bank. Dabbling in anti-Hussein activities led to his recruitment by the CIA. Eventually the CIA blacklisted Chalabi (unclear activities involving Iran, missing funds), and the Saudis, Israelis, and State Dept. did as well.

Chalabi persisted, however, and managed to obtain strong support from American neocons, and American and Israeli think-tanks. The 9/11 attacks proved a boon for Chalabi as he supplied (with more American money) major (but false) story lines to support attacking Iraq: Existence of an Iraq hijacking school, underground WMD hiding places, mobile weapons labs, and links between Al Qaeda and Iraq.

More funds were provided to train/equip an Iraq refugee army (74 showed up for training, vs. 3,000 promised), and to play various Iraq government roles post-Saddam. (Chalabi received less than 1% of votes for President in '05.) Eventually the U.S. investigated Chalabi for his connections to Iran.

Who knows where Chalabi will pop up next!

Very well written, and feel-of-adventure fasilitating book. But also shocking and surrealistic: Can this be true?

AR has the ability to almost hide his beliefs and sympaties, and there is room for improvement. Still a sober and extremely credible write!

My finest recommandations.

JBP