Are we being Chalabied?

Or Chalobbied?

Ahmed Chalabi, of course, was the person primarily responsible for filling the willing ears of the White House with gory tales of Saddam Hussein's overflowing chemical and biological weapons stocks and drive to get nuclear weapons. Supposedly based on inside information, the claims proved to be bogus, nothing more than PR to promote an invasion of Iraq by which Chalabi hoped to benefit.

Now the pattern may be repeating in the case of Iran, high on the list of next targets for "regime change" among the councils of the conservatives in DC. AP reported that

Iran bought blueprints of a nuclear bomb from the same black-market network that gave Libya such diagrams and continues to enrich uranium despite a commitment to suspend the technology that can be used for atomic weapons, an Iranian opposition group said Wednesday.

Farid Soleimani, a senior official for the National Council for Resistance in Iran, did not offer evidence for the claims. His group has said in the past that it gets information on Iran's nuclear program from opposition sources within Iran, including some moles who have infiltrated the Islamic Republic's military and security organizations.

CNN adds that the group

says it has disclosed the location of what it says is a newly discovered nuclear weapons research facility in Tehran,

on land in the Lavizan district of the capital under the control of the Ministry of Defense.

The group said the Iranian regime moved various nuclear equipment to the new site after its previous facility in the Bagh Sian area in Lavizan was publicized and subsequently visited by the IAEA.

However, AP notes that "much of [the group's] information as not been confirmed" and that "no evidence has been found" in support of NCRI's claim that Iran received blueprints for nuclear weapons manufacture. Meanwhile,

CNN's Matthew Chance said the group had made similar allegations in recent years and its information had been found to be "somewhat patchy."

And NCRI itself is the political wing of the People's Mujahedeen, or Mujahedeen Khalq, a terrorist organization charged with attacks on civilians in Iran.

The claims come just days after Iran reached an agreement with the UK, France, and Germany to halt its nuclear enrichment programs in exchange for their support before the IAEA that Iran has the right to pursue a nuclear energy program, an agreement that would avoid a confrontation and hinder US desires to have Iran brought before the UN Security Council to face possible sanctions. The timing, just after the agreement and shortly before the IAEA meeting, could be coincidence, but the benefit to NCRI to having Iran in increasing conflict with the West, particularly the US, can't be overlooked - and neither can the benefit to the warmongers in the White House of having "inside information" for convenient accusations.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... you know the rest. Of course, that assumes that the people in power here have any shame to feel.