Chalabi, Niger, Italy 

Chalabi, Niger, Italy

Kevin Drum is careful to describe this story as unproven, but it's too delicious not to run with. Is it possible that every single piece of the most outrageous crap about Iraq uttered by Bushies came from Chalabi and/or Iran?

[blockquote]The story of Italian military intervention in Iraq begins [in late 2001] when the resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Ledeen, sponsored by Defense Minister Antonio Martin, debarks in Rome with Pentagon men in tow to meet a handful of “Iranian exiles.” The meeting is organized by SISMI in an agency “safe house” near Piazza di Spagna (however other sources told us it was a reserved room in the Parco dei Principi Hotel).[/blockquote]

Twenty men are gathered around a large table, covered by maps of Iraq, Iran and Syria. Those who count are Lawrence Franklin and Harold Rhode of the Office of Special Plans, Michael Ledeen of the AIE, a SISMI station chief accompanied by his assistant (the first is a balding man between 46 and 48 years of age; the second is younger, around 38, with braces on his teeth), and some mysterious Iranians.