$1 million gone, US doubts Iraq defector credibility

The arrangement, paid with taxpayer funds supplied to the exile group under the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, involved extensive debriefing of at least half a dozen defectors by defence intelligence agents in European capitals and at a base in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil in late 2002 and early 2003, the officials said.

But a review early this year by the defence agency concluded that no more than one-third of the information was potentially useful. Chalabi has defended the arrangement, saying that his organisation had helped just three defectors provide information to US intelligence about Iraq’s suspected weapons programme, and that two of them had been judged to be credible.

But several federal officials said the arrangement had wasted more than $1 million in taxpayers’ money and had prompted them to question the credibility of Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. One Defense Department official said that some of the people were not who they said they were and that the money for the programme could have been better spent.

The officials also said the Defense Intelligence Agency had been generally sceptical of the defectors from the start, on the ground that they were motivated more by the money and the desire to stir up sentiment against Saddam Hussein than by a desire to provide accurate information. A Defense Department official who defended the arrangement said that the information had ‘‘improved our situational awareness’’.

The partnership between the exiles and the US was initially run by the State Department. After internal Department reviews in 2001 and 2002, it concluded that much of the $4 million for the programme had not been properly accounted for, oversight of the programme was transferred to the Defense Department in 2002. NYT