CIA fears Iran duped U.S. into Iraq war

WASHINGTON, May 25 (UPI) -- The CIA has asked the FBI to investigate Ahmad Chalabi's Pentagon contacts to see how he got sensitive military data that ended up in Tehran.

At the heart of the CIA request is its growing suspicion that Iran manipulated the United States and Britain into the Iraq war by bogus intelligence passed through Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress to Pentagon contacts, the Guardian reported Tuesday.

The Pentagon also has launched its own investigation of a possible Chalabi-Iran link.

According to a U.S. intelligence official, the CIA has hard evidence that Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, passed U.S. secrets to Tehran, and that Habib has been a paid Iranian agent involved in passing bogus reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to U.S. hawks and giving good U.S. intelligence to Tehran.

"It's pretty clear that Iranians had us for breakfast, lunch and dinner," said an intelligence source in Washington. "Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States for several years through Chalabi."

A former senior counter-terrorist official at the State Department agreed.

"When the story ultimately comes out we'll see that Iran has run one of the most masterful intelligence operations in history," said Larry Johnson.