Hero, Period

"We are heroes in error," Ahmad Chalabi is quoted today as telling The Daily Telegraph's man in Baghdad. Those with knives out for the free Iraqi leader will no doubt pounce on the statement, accusing him of self-aggrandizement for the claim that he and his colleagues in the struggle to liberate Iraq are heroes, and of admitting guilt for his claim that they were in error. As Mr. Chalabi also reportedly said in the interview, "The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat."

The reason that Mr. Chalabi is a hero — not in error, and not a goat — is something else he said in that Telegraph interview. "That tyrant Saddam is gone," Mr. Chalabi said. And that is thanks, not in small part, to Mr. Chalabi's own leadership, at great personal sacrifice and risk. It is not because he misled anyone. He was entirely forthright the whole way along about the reasons it was necessary to replace Saddam with a free and democratic government. To ascribe to Mr. Chalabi the power to mislead the American Congress, American presidents of both parties, the United Nations weapons inspectors, even the Europeans who said they believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction even as they opposed his ouster — is to overstate his influence, which, while substantial, was and is hardly as all-powerful as would be required to pull off such a feat.

As for the "error," the weapons of mass destruction dossier is still incomplete. The stockpiles may have been moved to Syria or buried beneath the sands of Iraq. They may yet be found: A 7 pound block of cyanide salt was discovered in January in a terrorist safe house by American troops in Baghdad. Even if the weapons stockpiles did not exist, it made sense to oust the dictator before he had stockpiles of deadly weapons to use against American cities, rather than waiting until it was too late. Indeed, to the people of Iraq who had relatives murdered by Saddam's brutal regime and who are now free to elect their own leaders and openly debate political issues, the talk of "error" and the flap over the weapons of mass destruction must appear beside the point. The people of Iraq will soon enough get a chance to vote for their leaders in a free election, and to offer their own judgment on Mr. Chalabi's heroism.