Reply #1: Robert Parry (who pushed the Iran Contra story) weighs in:

[salin]

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/052504.html

Bush Sr.'s Iraq-Iran Secrets
By Robert Parry
May 25, 2004


Before the Iraq War spins further out of control, former President George H.W. Bush should sit down his son, George W. Bush, and level with him about the real history of U.S. relations with Iraq, Iran and Israel’s Likud Party – even if the father has to admit to illegal and unethical conduct in the process.

The latest Iraq embarrassment – allegations that the longtime U.S. favorite Ahmed Chalabi and the intelligence chief for Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress were Iranian spies – derives from the younger Bush’s continuing failure to see the Middle East as it is, not how he might like it to be. While Bush junior crafts hopeful nation-building plans, he doesn’t seem to have the foggiest notion who the players are, where their true allegiances may lie or why these conflicting interests could undermine U.S. policy.

---snip---

Many of the overly optimistic assumptions behind the war, as well as much of the supposed evidence of Iraqi WMD stockpiles, came from Chalabi and his associates. After the invasion, U.S. forces discovered that much of the information was bogus.

Initially, many observers suspected that Chalabi had promoted the false information either to make money or to get the U.S. to install him in power in Iraq. But the new allegations suggest that Chalabi also may have been a stalking horse for Iranian leaders seeking to get the United States to do what Iran couldn’t do: remove Saddam Hussein from power.

On May 21, Chalabi’s Baghdad home was raided by U.S.-backed Iraqi police as part of an investigation into suspicions that INC officials had passed sensitive intelligence about U.S. troop positions to Iran. A warrant also was issued for the arrest of Aras Habib, Chalabi’s top intelligence adviser, on a variety of charges. Appearing on U.S. news programs, Chalabi has denied the “smear” and blamed CIA Director George Tenet for spreading the allegations.

more....
long article - recounts the October surprise story and others - have to read well into it to get to the current story.