Reply #5: per Habib (the one who fled to Iran) from Josh Marshall

[salin]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/002992.php

(May 22, 2004 -- 02:17 AM EDT)
On the new charges that Ahmed Chalabi's 'intelligence chief' Aras Karim is in fact an Iranian spy, Knut Royce's piece in Newsday contains the biggest bombshells. This is a follow-up on his piece from yesterday.

The Post meanwhile has a lengthier, though less clear-cut account, which includes important new details and an interview with Chalabi's long-time Washington handler Francis Brooke.

(ed. note: Most of the articles discussing this issue refer to the man in question as Aras Karim Habib, though he is sometimes referred to as Aras Habib, Aras Karim, or Aras Habib Karim.)

---snip---

We've been discussing for some time that Chalabi's connections to the Iranians and his flow of money from the Iranians has been known about among Chalabi's Washington supporters for years. But suspicions that Aras Karim was an Iranian agent are not new either.

Take this October 13th, 1998 New York Times article, which says that "An F.B.I. report said Mr. Karim's cousin Aras Habib Muhamad Al-Ufayli, who had been the intelligence chief for the Iraqi National Congress, had a 'well-documented connection to Iranian intelligence.'"

---snip---
Two years later, Dr. Ali Yasin Mohammed Karim, of the six original detainees, was finally released from INS custody. And the following passage appeared in an August 19th, 2000 article in the LA Times (emphasis added)...

Attorneys for the INS have contended that there is a reasonable belief Karim is a danger to national security. They have argued that one of the doctor's cousins is a suspected Iranian intelligence agent, the doctor's travel patterns were suspicious, and he might have misled federal agents about how his brother Mohammed made it into the United States.

more...

Thanks Josh - I couldn't remember where I had read this - but if the way the pieces appear to fit together for me are correct - this information (that this information was out in the plain open and intentionally ignored) seems to be significant.