The Personal is Political. The Political is Personal.

 
misty water colored memories . . .

One perverse benefit of being a stockpiler and packrat of printed material is the occasional excavation of a piece of writing that takes on a whole new meaning with the passage of time.

For example, recently while culling my stacks of useless crap ("archives"), I found an article with the following title, from the February 1999 issue of Moment:

Can Ahmed Chalabi Overthrow Saddam Hussein?

The article is by Suzanne F. Singer, now an editor at Biblical Archaelogy Review.

The article was written in the wake of and mentions the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, when AC was still chairman of the INC.* The piece features a classic photo of the Casual Chalabi (black t-shirt stylee, as here), with former CIA director James Woolsey standing behind him. Funny how I cannot find the words "Jordan" or "embezzlement" anywhere in the piece.

A couple useful Chalabi-related timelines are here and here.

Anyway, the article seems to have no on-line counterpart (it's only virtual vestige seems to be here), but some of its quotes deserve preservation:

"The Iraqi opposition today is ready again to do all the fighting," Chalabi continued. . . .

"Many Iraqis, outside the hard core of several hundred who never left us, are rallying around again, ready to fight. We have been approached by many Iraqis who would not talk to us for several years. I have been called from all over the world. People actually fighting Saddam now in the south -- there are several hundred of them -- approached us and said they are eager to cooperate. . . .

As Saddam is left increasingly isolated and powerless, Chalabi predicts, "an uprising will take place in Baghdad, and Saddam will be toppled."

Chalabi envisions Iraq as a stable, peaceful democray in the Middle East.

Today's "number": 2567.

* AC was later demoted within the INC, as recorded among other places in an April 1999 WaPo piece that includes another classic passage:

"Chalabi is the face of the Iraqi opposition in Washington," said a key Republican staff member. "He is a person of strength, principle and real national commitment," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), who met recently in his office with Chalabi.

posted by TiR at 7:03 AM