Dowd on Chalabi as Oil Minister

I'm not always a Maureen Dowd fan, preferring Krugman, Herbert, and Frank Rich for substance -- but when she's good, she's very, very good.

Mr. Bush wanted Iraq to have a democracy like ours. It's on its way, nearing an ethics-free zone where a corrupt official can hold sway and a theocracy can curb women's rights.

Now we know how the Bushies plan to maintain their control in Iraq indefinitely, when the day comes that they are no longer running the administration.

Namely, the same way they plan to do so here in the US.

full article at the New York Times site and more below the fold...

Ahmad Chalabi - convicted embezzler in Jordan, suspected Iranian spy, double-crosser of America, purveyor of phony war-instigating intelligence - is the new acting Iraqi oil minister.

Is that why we went to war, to put the oily in charge of the oil, to set the swindler who pretended to be Spartacus atop the ultimate gusher?

Does anybody still think the path to war wasn't greased by oil?

It was always about the oil. I wonder how much has been taken out on tankers, off the books, straight into the pockets of war profiteers, since the invasion? In this war zone there is no accounting oversight. Now, if only those conditions can be perpetuated indefinitely. Maybe Chalabi can help!

Oil isn't on the front burner only in Iraq. Mr. Bush and Dick Cheney know that time is running out to pay back the Texas buddies who sent them here with an energy bill. So those two oilmen are frantically pushing one loaded with giveaways to the oil industry at a time when it's already raking in huge profits because of high gasoline prices.

In Baghdad, we may wind up with a one-man Enron - never underestimate the snaky charmer. And the draconian efforts of Mr. Chalabi and other Shiites in power to purge Baathists from the government will breathe fire into the insurgency.

full article