The New York Times was out over the weekend with an editorial complaining about the lack of postwar planning in Iraq and laying the blame at the feet of a leading opponent to Saddam Hussein, Ahmad Chalabi. “What then, caused the administration to invade with so little preparation for what would happen after the fighting, and so much confidence that the Iraqis could quickly take the reins of power? Once again, it seems likely that the Defense Department and the president’s security advisers believed the reassurances of Mr. Chalabi and the other Iraqi exiles,” the Times editorial said under the subheadline, “The Failure to Plan.”

By now we’re used to Mr. Chalabi’s detractors hurling baseless charges in his direction in desperate hope that one will stick. But this latest one — that he is to blame for President Bush’s decision “to invade with so little preparation for what would happen after the fighting” — is going to be awfully hard to support, given the facts on record, starting with the headline that ran across four columns at the top of the front page of the first issue of The New York Sun, on April 16, 2002: “Free Iraqi Leader Warns of ‘Abysmal’ Planning,” the headline said. A subheadline said, “Chalabi, in New York, Says American Aid on the Democratic Transition ‘Must Start Right Away.'”

The news article in the Sun — nearly a year before the American invasion — began,”Even while President Bush is beating the drums for war against Iraq, the administration’s bureaucrats are falling short in the planning for a democratic transition following the ouster of Saddam Hussein. That is the view the leader of the free, democratic Iraqi opposition, Ahmad Chalabi, expressed in an interview with The New York Sun this weekend.”

The Sun news article went on to say that among the necessary steps outlined by Mr. Chalabi were, as the article paraphrased him, “the training of military policemen to take control of the liberated areas” and “the training of prosecutors, judges, and law enforcement officials.”

The New York Times doesn’t want to acknowledge this because it is not interested in the facts. It is interested in embarrassing the Bush administration. But, in fact, Mr. Chalabi was giving good advice before the war, as subsequent events have shown. If American officials are to blame, it’s not for having listened to Mr. Chalabi, but for having ignored his warnings.

Those warnings went far beyond cautioning about the postwar planning. Mr. Chalabi had consistently urged the liberation of Iraq primarily by Iraqis. “Iraq can only be freed by Iraqis,”Mr. Chalabi said in an April 16, 1997, statement in Washington. In a June 2, 1997, speech to the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, he said, “What we don’t need are U.S. troops or high-technology weapons. We are prepared to fight for our country and are convinced that only an Iraqi army can remove Saddam.”In the interview in the April 16,2002, number of the Sun, he said, “Above all, we must have Iraqi participation in the liberation process in a substantial and significant way.”He said — too hopefully, it turns out — “This is not going to be a war between Iraq and the United States. This is going to be a war of national liberation of Iraq by the Iraqi people against the regime in Iraq, with the United States providing assistance to the Iraqi people.”

These columns have pressed that view repeatedly. In a June 17, 2002, editorial, we wrote, “Only a popular, democratic revolution in Iraq will bring about a regime friendly to America.…This is not an argument for American inaction against Saddam, who is a genuine threat, but an argument for some rapid and wellconsidered political planning for what comes after Saddam, and for the involvement of the Iraqi people — not Saddam’s cronies — in the revolution against him.”

After the war, in a May 21, 2003, editorial, we wrote, “Every day that America delays in yielding authority to an Iraqi interim government adds another unnecessary day to America’s stay in Iraq.”

None of this means that American deaths in fighting since the liberation of Baghdad were in vain. They were for a glorious cause. We believe the war in Iraq was justified not only to liberate Iraq but as American self-defense after September 11, 2001. After the World Trade Center attack, the presence of a terrorist-supporting dictator with unaccounted-for biological weapons was an unacceptable risk for America. Washington ignored Mr. Chalabi’s advice for a long time. But with this week’s announcement by America of moves to accelerate the shift of more authority in Iraq to Iraqis, Mr. Chalabi told us, “Finally the United States is fulfilling its role as liberator.”

The armchair generals on both coasts — and in Iowa and New Hampshire — are now second-guessing Mr. Bush on the number of American troops in Iraq, on an “exit strategy,” and on the need to avoid getting hurried into an exit strategy. Many of these second-guessers are the same ones who fault Mr. Bush for supposedly squandering international good will and alienating America’s friends abroad. Mr. Chalabi and those around him in Iraq are friends of America. The best way out of Iraq for America — the best way to minimize American casualties, catch Saddam, and assure a free and democratic future for the Iraqi people, the best way to establish the great example many of us feel Iraq has the capacity to become — will be to heed Mr. Chalabi’s advice going forward.