Ahmed Chalabi

Ahmed Chalabi

Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi,¹ (Arabic: أحمد الجلبي 'Ahmad al-Jalabī) (born October 30, 1944) was interim oil minister in Iraq[1] in April-May 2005 and December-January 2006 and deputy prime minister from May 2005 until May 2006. Chalabi failed to win a seat in parliament in the December 2005 elections, and when the new Iraqi cabinet was announced in May 2006, he was not awarded a post. Once dubbed the "George Washington of Iraq" by American neoconservatives, he has fallen out of favor and is currently under investigation by several U.S. government sources. He is also wanted for massive bank fraud in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. However they dropped the charges after he became a member of Iraqs government in 2005.

Chalabi was also part of a three-man executive council for the umbrella Iraqi opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), created in 1992 for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Although the INC received major funding and assistance from the United States, it never had any influence or any following to speak of in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. The INC's influence gradually waned until the December 2005 elections, in which it failed to win a single seat in Parliament.

Chalabi is a controversial figure for many reasons. In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, under his guidance the INC provided a major portion of the information on which U.S. Intelligence based its condemnation of Saddam Hussein, including reports of weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Nearly all, if not all, of this information has turned out to be false. That, combined with the fact that Chalabi subsequently boasted about the impact that their falsifications had in an interview with the British Sunday Telegraph, led to a falling out between him and the United States.

Initially, Chalabi enjoyed close political and business relationships with some members of the U.S. government, including some prominent neoconservatives within the Pentagon. Chalabi is said to have had political contacts within the Project for the New American Century, most notably with Paul Wolfowitz, a student of nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter and Richard Perle who was introduced to Chalabi by Wohlstetter in 1985. He also enjoyed considerable support among politicians and political pundits in the United States, most notably Jim Hoagland of The Washington Post, who held him up as a notable force for democracy in Iraq. Chalabi's opponents, on the other hand see him as a charlatan of questionable allegiance, out of touch with Iraq and with no effective power base there. [2].

History

Chalabi is the scion of a prominent Shi'a family, one of the wealthy power elite of Baghdad, where he was born. Chalabi left Iraq with his family in 1956 and spent most of his life in the USA and the UK. In 1965, he received an Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from MIT. In 1969, he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago under the direction of George Glauberman (dissertation title: On the Jacobson Radical of a Group Algebra, see [3]), after which he took a position in the mathematics department at the American University of Beirut. He published 3 mathematics papers between 1973 and 1980, one being Modules over group algebras and their application in the study of semi-simplicity, Mathematische Annalen 201 (1973), 57–63.

In 1971 Chalabi married Leila Osseiran, daughter of Lebanese politician Adil Osseiran. They have four children. [4]

In 1977 he founded the Petra Bank in Jordan. In the late 1980s, the Jordanian government issued a decree ordering all banks in the country to deposit one fifth of their reserves with the Central Bank. Petra Bank was the only bank that was unable to meet this requirement, and so Chalabi decided to flee the country before the authorities could react. Chalabi was convicted and sentenced in absentia for bank fraud by a Jordanian military tribunal. He faces seventeen years in prison, should he again enter Jordan. Chalabi maintains that his prosecution was a politically motivated effort to discredit him. (BBC profile, 2002). In May 2005 it was reported [5] that King Abdullah II of Jordan promised to pardon Chalabi, in part to ease the relations between Jordan and the new Iraqi government of which Chalabi was a member. According to one report, Chalabi proposed a 32 million dollar compensation fund for depositers affected by Petra Bank's failure. Although he has always maintained the case was a plot to frame him by Baghdad, the issue was revisited later when the State Department raised questions about the INC's accounting practices.

He was involved in organizing a resistance movement among Kurds in northern Iraq in the mid-1990s. When that effort was crushed and hundreds of his supporters were killed, Chalabi fled the country. Chalabi lobbied in Washington for the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act (passed February 1998), which earmarked USD $97 million to support Iraqi opposition groups, virtually all of which was funneled through the INC.

Chalabi has been accused by some opposition figures of using the INC to further his own ambitions.

Invasion of Iraq

Before the war, the CIA was largely skeptical of Chalabi and the INC, but information from his group (most famously from a defector codenamed "Curveball") made its way into intelligence dossiers used to help convince the public in America and Britain of the need to go to war. "Curveball" – the brother of a top lieutenant of Chalabi – fed hundreds of pages of bogus "firsthand" descriptions of mobile biological weapons factories on wheels and rails. Secretary of State Colin Powell later used this information in a UN presentation trying to garner support for the war, despite warnings from German intelligence that "Curveball" was fabricating claims. Since then, the CIA has admitted that the defector made up the story, and Colin Powell apologized for using the information in his speech. A later congressionally appointed investigation (Robb-Silberman) concluded that Curveball had no relation whatsoever to the INC, and that press reports linking Curveball to the INC were erroneous.

The INC often worked with the media, most notably with Judith Miller, concerning her sensational WMD stories for the New York Times starting on Feb 26, 1998. After the war, given the lack of discovery of WMDs, most of the WMD claims of the INC were shown to have been either misleading, exaggerated, or completely made up while INC information about the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein's loyalists and Chalabi's personal enemies were accurate. Another of Mr Chalabi's advocates was the American Enterprise Institute's Iraq specialist, Danielle Pletka.

As U.S. forces took control during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, Chalabi returned under their aegis and was given a position on the Iraq interim governing council by the Coalition Provisional Authority. He served as president of the council in September 2003. He denounced a plan to let the UN choose an interim government for Iraq. "We are grateful to President Bush for liberating Iraq, but it is time for the Iraqi people to run their affairs," he was quoted as saying (NY Times).

In August 2003, the U.S. State Dept. conducted a poll among Iraqis and Chalabi was the only candidate whose unfavorable ratings exceeded his favorable ones. In a survey of nearly 3000 Iraqis in February 2004 (by Oxford Research International, sponsored by the BBC in the United Kingdom, ABC in the U.S., ARD of Germany, and the NHK in Japan), only 0.2% of respondents said he was the most trustworthy leader in Iraq (see survey link below, question #13). A secret document written in 2002 by the British Overseas and Defence Secretariat reportedly described Chalabi as "a convicted fraudster popular on Capitol Hill". [6]

In response to the WMD controversy, Chalabi told London's Daily Telegraph in February 2004, "We are heroes in error. As far as we're concerned, we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat." [7]

During the period from March 2000 through September 2003, the U.S. State Department paid nearly $33 million to the Iraqi National Congress, according to a U.S. General Accounting Office report released in 2004. [8] Subsequently, Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress was paid about $335,000 per month by the Defense Intelligence Agency until May 18, 2004.

Falling out with the U.S.

As Chalabi's position of trust with the Pentagon crumbled, he found a new political position as a champion of Iraq's Shi'ites (Chalabi himself is a Shi'ite). Beginning January 25, 2004, Chalabi and his close associates promoted the claim that leaders around the world were illegally profiting from the Oil for Food program. These charges were around the same time that UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi indicated that Chalabi would likely not be welcome in a future Iraqi government. Up until this time, Chalabi had been mentioned formally several times in connection with possible future leadership positions. Chalabi contends that documents in his possession detail the misconduct, but he has yet to provide any documents or other evidence. The U.S. has sharply criticized Chalabi's Oil for Food investigation as undermining the credibility of its own.

Additionally, Chalabi and other members of the INC have been being investigated for fraud involving the exchange of Iraqi currency, grand theft of both national and private assets, and many other criminal charges in Iraq. On May 19, 2004 the U.S. government discontinued their regular payments to Chalabi for information he provided. Then on May 20, Iraqi police supported by U.S. soldiers raided his offices and residence, taking documents and computers, presumably to be used as evidence. A major target of the raid was Aras Habib, Chalabi's long-term director of intelligence, who controls the vast network of agents bankrolled by U.S. funding.

In June 2004, it was reported that Chalabi gave U.S. state secrets to Iran in April, including the fact that one of the United States' most valuable sources of Iranian intelligence was a broken Iranian code used by their spy services. Chalabi allegedly learned of the code through a drunk American involved in the code-breaking operation. Chalabi has denied all of the charges, and nothing has ever come of the charges nor do the Iraqi or U.S. governments currently seemed very interested in pursuing them. [9]

An arrest warrant for alleged counterfeiting was issued for Chalabi on August 8, 2004, while at the same time a warrant was issued on murder charges against his nephew Salem Chalabi (at the time, head of the Iraqi Special Tribunal), while they both were out of the country. Chalabi returned to Iraq on August 10 planning to make himself available to Iraqi government officials, but he was never arrested. Charges were later dropped against Ahmed Chalabi, with Judge Zuhair al-Maliki citing lack of evidence.

On September 1, 2004 Chalabi told reporters of an assassination attempt near Latifiya, a town south of Baghdad. Chalabi was said to be returning from a meeting with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, where a few days earlier a cease fire had taken effect, ending three weeks of confrontations between followers of Muqtada al-Sadr and the U.S. military.

He regained enough credibility to be made deputy prime minister on April 28, 2005. At the same time he was made acting oil minister [10], before the appointment of Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum in May 2005. On protesting IMF austerity measures, Al-Uloum was instructed to extend his vacation by a month in December 2005 by Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, and Chalabi was reappointed as acting oil minister. Al-Uloum returned to the post in January 2006 but now may or may not be "resigning" again. [11]

In November 2005, Chalabi traveled to the U.S. and met with top U.S. government officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, Robert Zoellick, the deputy secretary of state, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Stephen Hadley, President Bush's national security adviser. At this time Chalabi also traveled to Iran to meet with controversial Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iraqi elections January 2005

The Iraqi National Congress, headed by Ahmed Chalabi, was a part of the United Iraqi Alliance in the Iraqi legislative election, 2005. After the election, Chalabi claimed that he had the support of the majority of elected members of United Iraqi Alliance and staked claim to be the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Iraq. [12] However, Ibrahim al-Jaafari later emerged as the consensus candidate for prime minister. [13]

Iraqi elections December 2005

Prior to the December, 2005 elections, the Iraqi National Congress left the United Iraqi Alliance and formed the National Congress Coalition, which ran in the elections but failed to win a single seat in Parliament, gaining less than 0.5% of the vote. Other groups joining the INC in this list included: Democratic Iraqi Grouping, Democratic Joint Action Front, First Democratic National Party, Independent List, Iraqi Constitutional Movement, Iraqi Constitutional Party, Tariq Abd al-Karim Al Shahd al-Budairi, and the Turkoman Decision Party.

Trivia

Chalabi attended the 2006 Bilderberg Conference meeting outside of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

See also

• Iraq Liberation Act of 1998
• Adil Osseiran

External links

• Iraqi National Congress official INC website
• Al-Mutamar official INC daily newspaper
• Petra Bank Petra Bank court case website
• The Friend We Betrayed LA Times, (April 7, 2005)
• Ahmed Chalabi - from SourceWatch
• Ahmed Chalabi - from Iraqi News
• How Ahmed Chalabi conned the neocons - John Dizard writing for Salon.com (May 4, 2004).
• Ahmed Chalabi's List of Suckers - Douglas McCollam writing for AlterNet.org (July 12, 2004).
• Ahmad Chalabi Why shouldn't a politician be president of Iraq? - Chris Suellentrop writing for Slate.msn.com (April 9, 2003).
• Unveiled: the thugs Bush wants in place of Saddam from the Sunday Herald, September 22nd, 2002. Chalabi is one of the three men profiled.
• BBC November 9, 2005 Visit to Washington Causes Controversy
• List of political parties participating in December 2005 election.
• Where Plan A left Ahmad Chalabi In-depth autopsy of the Chalabi/Neocon relationship, November 3, 2006

References

• Profile: Ahmed Chalabi. - BBC News (October 3, 2002).
• Selective Intelligence - Seymour M. Hersh writing for the New Yorker (May 5, 2003).
• Q & A War and Intelligence - Amy Tübke-Davidson talking to Seymour Hersh for the New Yorker (May 5, 2003).
• More Missing Intelligence - Robert Dreyfuss writing for The Nation (June 19, 2003).
• Rumsfeld's personal spy ring - Salon.com (July 16, 2003).
• U.S. paid $1m for 'useless intelligence' from Chalabi - the Independent (UK) (September 3, 2003).
• Conscientious Objector - Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski writing for The American Conservative (December 15, 2003).
• The Lie Factory - Mother Jones Magazine (January/February 2004).
• Results from Iraq Surveys - Oxford Research International, Ltd.
• Onetime U.S. ally Chalabi's home, offices raided - MSNBC (May 20, 2004).
• The Truth About Ahmed Chalabi - CounterPunch (May 20, 2004).
• Iraqi judge issues arrest warrants for Ahmed and Salem - Al Jazeera (Aug 8, 2004).
• The Manipulator - New Yorker (June 7, 2004)
• Ahmed Chalabi at the Mathematics Genealogy Project

Timelines

• Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress timeline posted at the Center for Cooperative Research's website
• Iraqi National Congress timeline at the Stakeholder website (operated by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee)

Note

• The name is sometimes transcribed as Ahmad al-Jalabi.