Francis Brooke

Francis Brooke was the 'chief assistant' at chalabi's INC - first in london, and then in DC


"Francis Brooke worked in the mid-1990s on the Rendon Group's anti-Iraq campaign in London at a salary of $19,000 a month. He subsequently became the chief assistant in Washington to Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress." (link)

Brooke had some good access - first to Big Time Cheney:

"Some of the INC's intelligence on Iraq's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam's supposed ties to militant Islamic groups are reportedly funneled directly to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney by Francis Brooke, the DC lobbyist for the group." (link)

and also to the BigTimer's BigTime guy:

"Brooke, who is a devout Christian, has brought an evangelical ardor to the cause of defeating Saddam. “I do have a religious motivation for doing what I do,” Brooke said. “I see Iraq as our neighbor. And the Bible says, When your neighbor is in a ditch, God means for you to help him.”
[snip]
But in 1991 he took a public-relations job with an American firm in London called the Rendon Group, which described its specialty as “perception management.” The company had been founded by John Rendon, a former executive director of the Democratic National Committee. It didn’t take long for Brooke to realize that the project he was assigned at Rendon was funded by the C.I.A. Brooke." (link)

and maybe this is where Fitzgerald starts to take notice re the Niger forgeries:

"Brooke acknowledged that the I.N.C. had run a forgery shop" (link)

and you wont be surprised to see that he was hooked up with Laurie Mylroie - uberneocon and judy miller's co-author:

"Mylroie and the neocon hawks worked hand in glove to push her theory that Iraq was behind the '93 Trade Center bombing. Its acknowledgements fulsomely thanked John R. Bolton and the staff of AEI for their assistance, while Richard Perle glowingly blurbed the book as 'splendid and wholly convincing.' I. Lewis Libby, now Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is thanked for his 'generous and timely assistance.' Others who merit expressions of gratitude in Myleroie's acknowledgements are Cheney's foreign-policy advisors John Hannah and David Wurmser as well as Francis Brooke, a principal Washington lobbyist for the Iraqi National Congress." (link)

this post is one of a four-part series - see the set-up piece here, thenfrancis brooke here, duane clarridge here and wayne downing here