Oriental Rugs the O'Connell NotesNotes on U.S. Ambassador Zalmay M. KhalilzadI have it on good authority that Zalmay M. Khalilzad will be named Ambassador to Iraq by President Bush. Khalilzad is a longtime neocon and is personally very close to Paul Wolfowitz. While Ambassador Khalilzad has a long term pattern of association with people I believe to be agents of a foreign power I see no evidence that he has ever crossed the line into unethical or illegal activity. Khalilzad is a perplexing man in many ways however. He was a great friend of Taliban for many years and then a great enemy. He is said to be a Moslem but he is also an Ultra Zionist who is far more supportive of the most conservative faction of the Likud party then the vast majority of Jewish Americans. He can be expected to act as a Wolfowitz surrogate during his time in Baghdad.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld talks with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay M. Khalilzad onboard an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III en route to Kabul, Afghanistan, on Dec. 4, 2003. Rumsfeld is traveling to Afghanistan to meet with President Hamid Karzai and U.S troops deployed there. DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. Andy Dunaway, U.S. Air Force. (Released)
|