On the other hand, Ebbie, perhaps Chalabi was just doing precisely what he had been commissioned to do by certain people in the USA who were paying him off. That would be my guess. An empire that is bent on conquest in foreign lands finds and hires foreign agents like Chalabi to provide whatever false testimony or innuendo it requires in order to justify its next planned military operation.

So I'm saying...Chalabi found the American government's wish to attack Iraq convenient, just as the Bush administration found Chalabi's innacurate statements about Iraq convenient, and they both consciously deceived the public (or engaged in wishful thinking) (or both). A symbiotic relationship. These things always happen during wars. Someone is always found who says what someone else wants to hear. The Germans found cooperative people like Quisling in Norway, for example....and if the Germans had won the war, Quisling would be seen in the official histories of that war as a "freedom fighter" and a hero, not as a traitor (assuming he did not have a later falling out with the Nazis, that is, in which case he would have then become "expendable", and other Quislings would have been found...)

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As to the expression, "Here! Here!" It should definitely be "Hear! Hear!" It is an exhortation to others to listen to what is being said, not a statement meaning "I am present!" ;-)