Iraqi who pushed war back in spotlight

BAGHDAD — Ahmed Chalabi, once a key U.S. ally while in exile during Saddam Hussein's regime, is in the limelight again, and his actions are proving no less controversial than they did years ago.

On the eve of Iraq's parliamentary elections, Chalabi is driving an effort aimed at weeding out candidates tied to Saddam's Baath party. Chalabi is reprising a role he played after the U.S.-led invasion — which many critics believe he helped facilitate with faulty intelligence — and, in the process, is infuriating U.S. officials and some Iraqis, who suspect his motive is to bolster his own political bloc.

The re-emergence of Chalabi, a Shiite, on the political scene has rankled U.S. officials and fueled concerns that Sunnis and other secular Iraqis will be marginalized.

Ultimate prize

Some Iraqi and U.S. officials think Chalabi might have his eyes on the ultimate prize, however unlikely he can attain it.

"Even if it kills him, he's going to stay in Iraq to try to become prime minister," said Ezzat Shahbandar, a Shiite lawmaker from a competing slate who has known Chalabi for more than 20 years. Some would go further, and cast the events of the last few weeks as a victory for Iran's will over that of America.

After helping the Bush administration make the case for invading Iraq, Chalabi fell out of favor with the Americans in 2004, after they accused him of spying for Iran. The year before, though, he had been appointed to head a U.S.-formed commission to rid the government of officials tied to Saddam's regime.

The hasty purge the commission conducted is now widely seen as a catalyst of the insurgency and Iraq's sectarian war. Today, however, Chalabi remains at the helm of a similar "de-Baathification" panel, the Justice and Accountability Commission, because parliament has not appointed new members.

When the commission recently announced the disqualification of nearly 500 candidates from the March 7 elections, critics noted that candidates from Sunni-led and mixed secular coalitions were disproportionately targeted. Many of those ousted were rivals of Chalabi's bloc.

A court carried out a review behind closed doors and disqualified 145 candidates; most others dropped out or their parties replaced them.

The disqualifications are widening sectarian and religious divides in Iraq, struggling to recover from decades of authoritarian rule, occupation and bloodshed. Last week, in an apparent attempt to allay some of the bitterness, the government said it would reinstate 20,000 former army officers ousted because of their ties to Saddam.

Reversing efforts

At the center of it all is Chalabi, who appears to be reversing five years of U.S. policy in Iraq aimed at reconciling the Sunni and Shiite Muslim sects.

Shiites, he says, were only waiting for someone to reverse the last several years of efforts to reintegrate former Baathists into public life.

The U.S. provisional leader, Paul Bremer, had initially dissolved and banned the Baath party and forbidden senior members from public-sector employment. It also formed the first de-Baathification panel in 2003, with Chalabi as head, before changing its stance.

But Iraqi officials, including Chalabi, resisted efforts to disband the commission and continued the de-Baathification efforts. The Baath party was the political tool for Saddam's repressive regime and virtually anybody in government had to join.

In campaign posters, Chalabi, a onetime Iraqi exile, bills himself as "the Destroyer of the symbols of the Baath." Placards for other candidates on his political slate, the Iraqi National Alliance, are graced with the words "No space for the Baath," written in crimson letters that suggest blood.

The alliance is a Shiite coalition of parties whose most prominent figures are former Iraqi exiles in the current government. Those parties did poorly in provincial elections in January 2009.

Chalabi, 65, comes from an elite Baghdad family. He formed the Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group, in the early 1990s with U.S. backing.

He has long had a strong relationship with Iran. But he became close to the CIA and the Pentagon before the invasion, as U.S. officials used his group to muster opposition against Saddam. The U.S. government funneled millions to his group, which provided it with intelligence reports on weapons of mass destruction that later proved to be erroneous. In 2004, Chalabi was a guest of President Bush at the State of the Union address.

Tapped to lead

Chalabi had been tapped to lead Iraq's first post-occupation government. Instead, U.S. officials say, he was caught passing information to Iran, which Chalabi denies. The U.S. military raided his home, he was ostracized and in his place, the U.S. appointed a political rival, Iyad Allawi, as prime minister.

Many Iraqi Shiite politicians have little regard for Chalabi because he left in the late 1950s, avoiding authoritarian rule. Many of his peers were imprisoned, tortured and forced into exile.

Despite his lack of popular support, Chalabi has remained relevant. Even his rivals allow that he has keen political instincts, a sharp mind and a knack for influencing powerful people.

If the Chalabi-led purge gains traction in the weeks ahead, U.S. commanders could also lose key Iraqi officers who they have trained and mentored over the years.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. Ray Odierno, fumed in Washington, D.C., this month that he had evidence that both Chalabi and his deputy on the commission, Ali Faisal al-Lami, are directly influenced by Iran. Chalabi acknowledges having "many friends" in Shiite-ruled Iran, just as most of Iraq's current top Shiite leaders do.

"They will try to get rid of pro-U.S. generals, but more importantly, they are stacking the deck with pro-Iranian officers, which will damage U.S. long-term interests in the long run," a senior U.S. military official said. "This is why many neighboring Arab countries aren't so happy about us modernizing the Iraqi military with some of the latest equipment."

Another concern is Chalabi's ties to the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has a following among poor Shiites that Chalabi is courting as well. The backers of al-Sadr, who also has close ties to Iran, are running as part of the Shiite alliance.

Should the major Shiite parties be unable to agree on a candidate for prime minister, there's a chance Chalabi could emerge as a compromise choice, diplomats say.

Material from the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.