Dick Cheney, The Anti-Midas Touch Who fucks stuff up more? Dick Cheney or Doug Feith. Slate came out strongly yesterday and suggested the latter. But Feith is really just part of the extended Cheney "W"incompetence team. Today, from Newsday, the same paper that was most on top of the Plame scandal [and likely will be again] breaks this story about the connection between Chalabi, Cheney and Iranian spies.

At the center of the alleged Iranian intelligence operation, according to administration officials and intelligence sources, is Aras Karim Habib, a 47-year-old Shia Kurd who was named in an arrest warrant issued during a raid on Chalabi's home and offices in Baghdad Thursday. He eluded arrest... "There was an ongoing intelligence relationship between Karim and the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, all funded by the U.S. government, inadvertently," he said. The Iraqi National Congress has received about $40 million in U.S. funds over the past four years, including $33 million from the State Department and $6 million from the Defense Intelligence Agency.

OK, that's nice...well, actually, that's terrible, but what has it to do with Cheney? As Josh Marshall nicely points out [which is great because it really saves me from doing anywork]

Now, you probably remember all that has been said about the $340,000 a month stipend that the US was paying until just a few days ago for Chalabi's 'Information Collection Program' (ICP), basically the INC's intelligence operation, which was until recently supposed to become the nucleus of the new Iraqi intelligence service. (According to a June 2001 letter which the INC sent to the Senate Appropriations Committee, the information collected was sent directly to the Pentagon and the Office of the Vice President.) Now, who was in charge of the ICP? Right, Aras Karim.

Oh boy this should be good too!