Word: Ahmed Chalabi

Scott McLarty - Ahmed Chalabi was an international con man (wanted in Jordan for $500 million bank fraud) and darling of the Bush-Cheney neocon gang. Much of the phony intelligence about Iraqi WMDs, nuclear materials, and Saddam Hussein's links with al-Qaeda that was used to justify Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003 came from unreliable informants like Chalabi, Rafid Aḥmad Alwan ("Curveball"), and Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (who told his torturers what they wanted to hear, as torture victims tend to do). Even after Chalabi's dishonesty became obvious, he was the Bush Administration's favorite in the 2005 Iraqi elections.

Obits in the US medi are calling him an Iraqi leader. In reality, he's really a war criminal who (along with Bush, Cheney, et al.) is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and over 4,000 US troops.