THE WORLD'S GREATEST LIVING WRITER The War on Terror: Neal Pollack Reports

VANITIES

SINCE SEPTEMBER 13, 2001, l'VE BEEN ON A STREAK, AT FOUR DOLlars a word, never before seen in American journalism. First, I uncovered the truth behind the Pakistani intelligence service's inability to find the headquarters of the Turkish intelligence scrvice. Then I wrote about Richard Perle's shady efforts to finance a $ 15,000 rehab of his spare bathroom. Soon after, I discovered that a nuclearweapon cache in Saudi Arabia was actually a chemical-weapon cache in Jordan. My life became a series of expensive lunches with shadowy figures in opposition to illegitimate regimes, and even more expensive dinners with illegitimate figures who shadowed opposing regimes. My wife left me, saying I was more interested in finding instructions for imperial conquest in the writings of Leo Strauss than in our traditional weekly lovemaking hour. But I didn't care. I was the leading investigative reporter of all time, and I was getting very close to the truth. Every day, the truth gets closer.

Deep inside the Pentagon are the offices of a group of foreign-policy advisers who call themselves the Cabal. Since September 11, 2001, their intelligence reviews have been driving U.S. policy. But everyone knows about those guys.

Two floors below the offices of the Cabal, in a room so secret I found out about it only during a mysterious breakfast at an unnamed location, sits the chamber of the Secret Underground Coalition. When the president wants to know the truth, he asks someone to ask someone to call someone in the Cabal, who then calls S.U.C. The intelligence gradually filters upward, in a ' high-stakes game of telephone, until ; it's stripped of any connection with reality. That's how foreign policy gets —*

made in America now.

One afternoon, on a day that will remain anonymous, I blindfolded myself and drove to the Pentagon, where I was spun around several times so I would be even more confused about my location. I soon found myself in the S.U.C. antechamber. There, Marty Rothberger greeted me. Before Rothberger became founder of the Defense Department's most secret right-wing think tank, he was the information minister for the International Socialist Organization. "I changed my mind," he told me. "Because of a girl."

"Good God, man!" I said. "Could your name be any more Jewish?"

"Pardon me?" he said.

Rothberger and I talked for an hour. I took lots of notes. Jesus, was he boring. Later, a Pentagon official who hates himself told me, "Rothberger just talks and talks. He never shuts up. All his documents are forged, his numbers cooked. He provides information to President Bush that's so ridiculous it couldn't possibly be true. After a while, you just tune him out, saying to yourself, 'O.K., O.K., we'll invade Iran already! Just stop talking and let me go home.' "

The other day, I was counting my National Magazine Awards when I got a call from Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella organization for diverse groups that tell lies about Middle Eastern governments for personal profit and political revenge. A close bond exists between Chalabi and key administration intellectuals. Chalabi was also convicted in absentia for embezzling millions of dollars from a Jordanian bank. He just might be the next leader of Iraq.

"Hey, man," Chalabi said. "I'm in town. Wanna hang?"

"Sure!" I said.

"Awesome!" said Chalabi. "Also, would you please spread the word that Saddam Hussein is alive in Iraq and running a clandestine army of superrobot soldiers?"

Recently—but I won't tell you exactly when—I interviewed Senator Carl Levin, former Democratic head of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"So are we totally going to invade Syria?" I said.

He said, "If the U.S. is to gain international support for military action in the future, particularly pre-emptive action, the evidence we offer must be totally reliable and trustworthy. For example, if it is determined that the evidence of a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda was exaggerated, then it will be less likely that the international community would accept a U.S. intelligence conclusion that there is a connection between Iran and al-Qaeda."

I yawned.

"Sorry," I said. "What was that again?"

Senator Levin took off his glasses and rubbed his face.

"Oh, who am I kidding?" he said. "I don't know what the hell I'm talking about."

My cell phone rang. It was Chalabi. An unclassified brief about biological weapons in Iran had just become classified. He had the only copy, which he wanted to share with me.

"Ahmad," I said, "you leak so much useful information."

Marty Rothberger called on the other line. He said a very dangerous ideological shift had begun in an obscure region of the world. Something needed to be done, with weapons, and fast.

"Man," I said, "this war on terror is never gonna end!"