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How charismatic Chalabi lost favor with U.S.

By Robin Wright
The Washington Post

SYLWIA KAPUSCINSKI / KRT Ahmad Chalabi displays a damaged family photograph during a news conference after U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police raided his home and two offices in Baghdad yesterday.

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It marked the high point in Chalabi's checkered career — and in his relationship with the United States. It didn't last long.

U.S. officials point to that early April 2003 covert operation as the turning point in their dealings with the charismatic, U.S.-educated banker and convicted felon.

No Iraqi leader has had more to do with the U.S. intervention in Iraq than Chalabi, from charming Congress into authorizing almost $100 million to back his fledgling Iraqi National Congress in the late 1990s and convincing Washington about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction in 2002, to pressing for war last year, say his supporters and critics.

Yet instead of being the warrior-king who liberated town after town, "he was jeered more than cheered. Iraqis were shouting him down. It was embarrassing," said one U.S. official familiar with Chalabi's first public appearance in the Iraqi heartland after 45 years in exile. "We had to help bail him out."

Since then, Chalabi's standing has gradually eroded.

When he arrived in Baghdad, after U.S. troops liberated the Iraqi capital, Chalabi almost immediately began rubbing U.S. officials the wrong way by asserting himself — and becoming a rival authority, U.S. officials say.

One of his aides declared himself "mayor" of Baghdad. His supporters established what U.S. officials called "Chalabi cantons," complete with roadblocks and tolls. And loyalists sent out word that Iraqis should report to the Iraqi National Congress (INC) before returning to work.

His agents were also faster than U.S. troops at getting to Iraq's intelligence headquarters, where they took thousands of sensitive files, which the INC has refused to return to the new intelligence ministry, U.S. officials say. Supporters were implicated in commandeering the property of former Baath party officials, from homes to upscale cars.

But with strong support from Washington, Chalabi continued to play an important role as the U.S.-led coalition grappled with finding local leaders in an effort to shape postwar Iraq.

"He won the confidence of the neo-conservatives, plugged into their wavelength and articulated a vision that was identical to the one they had. What he said about Baathism, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, Saddam and the future of the Middle East was indistinguishable from what they believed," a senior U.S. official said.

Chalabi was among the 25 Iraqis selected last summer for the Iraqi Governing Council, but relations continued to fray. The U.S. failure to find weapons of mass destruction during the summer and fall further undermined his credibility — and irritated the Bush administration. INC intelligence and defectors played a major role in building the case against Saddam, U.S. officials say.

Since then, Chalabi also has irritated the administration by:

• Holding up approval of a transitional constitution for Iraq and opposing repeal of a religion-based law that denied women equal rights. His efforts, though unsuccessful, were seen as an attempt to ingratiate himself with conservative Shiite Muslims.

• Criticizing the U.S. decision to let senior United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi choose nominees for a caretaker government to run Iraq from July 1 until elections early next year. Chalabi accused Brahimi of anti-Israel views.

• Forging ties with pro-Iranian Shiite Muslim groups, including followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, a militant cleric whose Mahdi Army militia has been battling U.S. troops.

Throughout much of its relationship with him, the United States has been willing to shrug off Chalabi's past as a convicted felon disliked and mistrusted by many in the Arab world. In 1992, Chalabi, whose family fled Iraq when he was a teenager, was sentenced in absentia by Jordan to 22 years in prison on 31 counts of embezzlement and bank fraud.

But Chalabi's close relationship with Iran, the only neighboring state that regularly deals with him, is now a further cause of concern in Washington. U.S. officials have recently cited fears that Chalabi's ties could endanger U.S. operations in Iraq.

Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said yesterday's raid actually could turn out to be helpful to Chalabi. He could gain popularity for being targeted, given the anti-U.S. sentiment in Iraq. "He is an Iraqi politician, not an American puppet," Clawson says.

But Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East and military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says the U.S. action was a belated recognition that Chalabi is an unreliable opportunist.

Information from Gannett News Service is included in this report.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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