Did Chalabi Sell Out United States?
ZAHN: Today, more details emerged about the top secret information that Ahmed Chalabi allegedly gave Iran. The Bush administration has told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the CIA will investigate the matter. The FBI meanwhile, is trying to find out who allegedly gave the information to the former Iraqi exile. It is a stark change from the way Washington used to treat Chalabi.</s>ZAHN (voice-over): Before the war, Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress was on the Pentagon payroll, funneling information to the U.S. about Saddam Hussein. And the CIA reportedly funded Chalabi's efforts to overthrow Saddam. It was information from Chalabi's group that helped lead to the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq. Many place their bets on Chalabi as the country's next leader. But all that changed two weeks ago, when the U.S. cut off funding to the INC and Iraqi security forces raided Chalabi's Baghdad compound. U.S. officials accuse Chalabi of passing U.S. secrets to Iran. They also said one of Chalabi's associates may be an Iranian intelligence agent. Chalabi denies the charges and accused the CIA of a smear campaign.</s>AHMED CHALABI, IRAQI NATIONAL CONGRESS: Never did. Neither I, nor any of INC official provide any classified information. And we would not do it to a country that the United States feels that it is not friendly to them.</s>ZAHN: Today things look even worse for Ahmed Chalabi. CNN sources confirm that U.S. officials now believe that Chalabi let Iranians know that the U.S. had cracked their intelligence code. That code supplied U.S. intelligence with information about Iran's covert operations inside Iraq and around the world.</s>ZAHN: Today, Chalabi again denied any wrongdoing. He told the Associated Press that he had no such information about the U.S. Tonight, the Iraqi National Congress will also respond to the accusations. And joining us now from Washington, INC spokesman Entifadh Qanbar. Thanks for joining us tonight, Sir.</s>ENTIFADH QANBAR, INC SPOKESMAN: Thank you, Paula.</s>ZAHN: So, Mr. Chalabi has denied ever telling the Iranians that the U.S. cracked the Iranian code. Are you going to tell us tonight that he was never in possession of that information?</s>QANBAR: He was never in possession of this information and he never passed information to the Iranians. And to prove that, we are ready for a congressional investigation. Mr. Chalabi is ready to come and testify under oath. Today we fired a letter to the honorables Ashcroft and Mueller that the FBI -- requesting to investigate this matter. Ahmed Chalabi, again, offer his testimony under oath to resolve this matter. We need to have a due process to clear the facts.</s>ZAHN: OK. Then, Mr. Qanbar, how are you going to prove that? Because the charges are quite specific. Sources have told CNN that Mr. Chalabi gave the information about the secret codes to an Iranian intelligence official. And that the U.S. then intercepted a cable that this official sent back to Iran describing the conversation. Are you going to say that this is all a CIA fabrication?</s>QANBAR: I didn't say that. But it is quite unbelievable that the Iranians would send a message that they knew was broken saying that Chalabi give them this code. And that's what this investigation is about. This is a due process. We cannot believe any allegation just coming from CIA or other source. We have to investigate it. We knew for a fact that Chalabi or any of Chalabi's associates did not give this information. And, by the way, this allegation so far are not formal, not substantiated and not attributed. The only thing we know of, General Myers testified in front of Congress saying that INC intelligence helped to save Iraqi lives -- American lives, sorry.</s>ZAHN: To your knowledge, did Mr. Chalabi ever have any meetings with anybody in Iranian intelligence?</s>QANBAR: Dr. Chalabi had meetings across the board in the Iranian government. Our relation with Iran transparent. We have an office in Tehran funded by the American money that we were getting through the Iraq Liberation Act. And nothing was hidden. Our relation with Iran is a friendly, our relation with the United States is strategic, ally. And we do not have the habit or the practice to pass information in this way. By the way, "TIME" magazine yesterday put out the news of 12 points memorandum, 7 pages, put together in April to overcome Chalabi, to overthrow Chalabi. This is part of this scheme and it is clearly coming out now.</s>ZAHN: But if you believe this is a scheme, you also have to concede that the Bush administration had an awful lot riding on Mr. Chalabi. And it was just up until a couple of weeks ago that the U.S. government was paying him over $300,000 a month for his cooperation. People are having trouble tonight, including myself, understanding how this could possibly be a CIA plot given all of that.</s>QANBAR: Well, we didn't work with the CIA. And we had a bad relation with the CIA since the mid '90s. By the way, this is not the first time, in 1996, 5 members, senior members, of the INC accused of spying to Iran and spying to Saddam where they were put in 4 years in prison in California. And then they were released after Jim Woolsey, the former director of the CIA defended them and found that the so- called secret evidence was not existing and they were released after 4 years in prison. After it was found that these allegations were not true.</s>ZAHN: Mr. Qanbar, we've got to leave it there this evening. Thank you very much for joining us. Appreciate your time.</s>QANBAR: Thank you.</s>ZAHN: If Ahmed Chalabi did have top secret U.S. information, how did he get it and who would have been in the position to give it to him? To answer these questions, let's turn to former CIA officer Robert Baer who joins us now from Washington. He's the author of "Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul For Saudi Crude." Always good to see you, Bob, welcome.</s>ROBERT BAER, AUTHOR, FRM. CIA OFFICER: Good evening, Paula.</s>ZAHN: Let's go through some of the details of the stories that are surfacing. They are quite incredible. There is even an account in the "New York Times" today which suggests that Chalabi believed that the American official who gave him this incredibly sensitive intelligence was drunk. Is any of this story plausible to you?</s>BAER: It's plausible, but I'm dismayed to be reading this on the front page of the "New York Times" and to be discussing this on television. We're talking about potential, you know, sources and methods here. And this is -- this is a strange way to conduct intelligence is in the public like this. But it is -- the accusations are extremely serious. I'm not talking against Mr. Chalabi, but whoever gave this information to Mr. Chalabi. He has no security clearances. He gets no briefings, classified briefings, and he gets no paper. I don't think he would know what a secret was, because he's not part of that culture.</s>ZAHN: So, how many people would have access to that kind of information, Bob?</s>BAER: What the "New York Times" describes, a handful. A lot of this stuff is not disseminated, is top secret. The press is described this as a secret compartmented intelligence. It is very limited. The rules are absolutely strict. And the laws are very straightforward. You go jail if you pass this stuff out. So someone -- if this story is true at all, passing information of this quality out should go jail.</s>ZAHN: How damaging is this source, the loss of this source of intelligence?</s>BAER: Any information that is described as especially compartmented intelligence, extremely dangerous, it could cause the loss of American lives.</s>ZAHN: How tough will it be to figure out how this information, if it ends up being true, ended up in Mr. Chalabi's hands?</s>BAER: In my experience in Washington, there is only been one successful leak investigation and one prosecution. Generally they're not.</s>ZAHN: And why is that?</s>BAER: You normally have to catch somebody passing paper that they can use and the chain of evidence to put somebody away.</s>ZAHN: And you say people cover their tracks better than that?</s>BAER: Well, if this is -- as the "New York" describes, the information it was done and all sorts of explanations for it. It would be very difficult for the FBI to bring a case, or identify anybody without paper involved.</s>ZAHN: There is another interesting part to this story, Bob, because news organizations withheld the information about the codes for about ten days at the request of intelligence officials because it appeared the Iranians were going to continue to use the codes. Why wouldn't Iran have stopped using those codes right away?</s>BAER: I don't know anything about current codes. But, you know getting into these wilderness of mirrors on intelligence doesn't take you anywhere. Here is what I think. The fact that the charges have been brought, somebody in this government thinks they've got solid information that somebody in the Pentagon or the CIA or state department spilled secrets. I don't think the CIA would launch this investigation or the FBI unless they had good evidence. Mr. Chalabi is well respected by a lot of people in this administration. Still, it is a political liability to open an investigation like this unless there is some good evidence.</s>ZAHN: And how does this affect intelligence gathering from here on in?</s>BAER: We lose sources and methods. They're very hard to come by. So if there is a terrorist attack being planted in any part of the world and some source or a method was given to the Iranians we will not be clued into that operation, we can't stop it. These things are really hard to get.</s>ZAHN: If this ends up being true, it makes you pretty angry.</s>BAER: It makes me furious. When I left the CIA, they sat me down, they said you will never talk about the following things other than what is written in the national security law, which is very explicit.</s>ZAHN: Robert Baer, thank you for sharing your insights with us tonight. Coming up next, the Iraq war and its place in history. The president says it is one of the nation's great struggles. Two political observers give us their professional take. And then the defense begins to show its cards in the Scott Peterson murder trial.