Ahmad Chalabi

He is the U.S. antidote to Saddam Hussein, or at least the man Congress seems to think stands the best chance of unseating the Iraqi leader. But even a cursory glance beyond the manicured nails and upbeat rhetoric of dissident Ahmad Chalabi provokes more questions than answers. Can the daring plan he envisions to trigger an anti-Hussein revolt--with the help of 10,000 U.S.-trained Iraqi troops and American air support--actually work? Many U.S. analysts cringe at the idea and predict disaster.

When Vice President Joe Biden slipped into Baghdad this month to commemorate the end of eight bloody years of war in Iraq, there was one face conspicuously absent from the host of solemn ceremonies and farewell meetings he attended: that of Ahmad Chalabi. The Iraqi politician, who lived in exile before Saddam Hussein's ouster, is shunned by Washington these days. But there has never been a foreigner more crucially involved in a decision by the United States to go to war than Ahmad Chalabi.

At the start of the war with Iraq, President Bush put the Pentagon on a long leash. He said he wasn't going to micromanage military commanders, that they could make "operational" decisions on their own. Last week, one of those decisions was to airlift a controversial Iraqi-exile leader -- Ahmad Chalabi -- into his native country, along with hundreds of his armed supporters.

Late for Tea at the Deer Palace The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family Tamara Chalabi Harper: 414 pp., $27.99 Tamara Chalabi is the daughter of the controversial Iraqi politician and opposition leader, Ahmad Chalabi, one of the leaders of the Iraqi National Congress who served as deputy prime minister in 2005-2006 and who many believe was a source for misinformation about Saddam Hussein's purported weapons of mass destruction....

Ahmad Chalabi, the onetime Pentagon darling who helped the Bush administration make the case for invading Iraq, is in a good mood as he settles into the back seat of his armored SUV to head out on the campaign trail. He ought to be. As chief architect of the move to disqualify hundreds of candidates accused of ties to the outlawed Baath Party, Chalabi has defined the agenda for the upcoming Iraqi national elections. In doing so, he has thwarted five years of U.S. policy in Iraq aimed at reconciling the Sunni and Shiite Muslim sects and gotten his revenge against America for dumping him as its favorite back in 2004.

Hailed by some in the Pentagon as a pro-American visionary and an emerging leader of the new Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi evokes quite a different response in Jordan, where he spent 12 years and left behind economic chaos, a court conviction on numerous financial charges -- and a lengthy prison term he never served. The Iraqi dissident's sojourn here engendered a complex web of ambition, money and political intrigue.

The Justice Department has launched an investigation to determine who may have leaked sensitive intelligence information to controversial Iraqi official Ahmad Chalabi, potentially causing widespread damage to U.S. surveillance efforts, government officials said Wednesday. The FBI said it had initiated an "intelligence" investigation, and Chalabi offered to let agents question him about allegations that he compromised a major American spying operation by revealing to Iran that U.S.

When Vice President Joe Biden slipped into Baghdad this month to commemorate the end of eight bloody years of war in Iraq, there was one face conspicuously absent from the host of solemn ceremonies and farewell meetings he attended: that of Ahmad Chalabi. The Iraqi politician, who lived in exile before Saddam Hussein's ouster, is shunned by Washington these days. But there has never been a foreigner more crucially involved in a decision by the United States to go to war than Ahmad Chalabi.

"A heavy nightmare has been lifted from the Iraqis. The situation will now improve in Iraq. The Iraqi people will sigh deeply." -- Ahmad Chalabi, governing council member

Iraq's government ordered the Iraqi National Congress to vacate its headquarters, days after a judge issued warrants against party leader Ahmad Chalabi and a nephew, INC spokesman Haidar Moussawi said Tuesday. The INC took over the former intelligence headquarters in Baghdad after the U.S.-led invasion last year. Chalabi founded the INC as an exile group opposing then-President Saddam Hussein. Chalabi denies charges of counterfeiting, and his nephew Salem Chalabi denies charges of murder.

Ahmad Chalabi, the onetime Pentagon darling who helped the Bush administration make the case for invading Iraq, is in a good mood as he settles into the back seat of his armored SUV to head out on the campaign trail. He ought to be. As chief architect of the move to disqualify hundreds of candidates accused of ties to the outlawed Baath Party, Chalabi has defined the agenda for the upcoming Iraqi national elections. In doing so, he has thwarted five years of U.S. policy in Iraq aimed at reconciling the Sunni and Shiite Muslim sects and gotten his revenge against America for dumping him as its favorite back in 2004.

Iraq's upcoming parliamentary elections should be about jobs, public services and government competence. Candidates should be focused on the country's security and on reconciliation among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Instead, the national vote once again is turning into a sectarian brawl in which Shiite parties jockeying with one another for dominance are stirring populist fears of a return of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led Baath Party. Never mind that Hussein was executed in 2006 or that the discredited Baath Party already is outlawed.

A suicide bomber tried to assassinate politician Ahmad Chalabi on Friday night, killing six of his guards when he rammed his car into the Shiite Muslim politician's speeding convoy, Chalabi's spokesman said. Chalabi, who has survived at least three previous attempts on his life, was returning to his home in the west Baghdad district of Mansour when the bomber in a sport utility vehicle struck, spokesman Iyad Kadhim Sabti said. At least 17 people were wounded, including nine of Chalabi's guards, police said.

Ahmad Chalabi sits in the conference room of his compound in the Green Zone preparing to meet with Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. military officer in Iraq. Sunlight streams over expensive Persian carpets and modern Iraqi furniture. Chalabi wears a sober charcoal suit, but there's a touch of the dandy in his lime-colored polka-dot tie. Chalabi professes not to even know what the meeting is about. The general, he says nonchalantly, requested it.

Ahmad Chalabi, a perennial Iraqi insider and political survivor, held out an olive branch to his former enemies Wednesday by publicly welcoming onetime members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party back into public life. Chalabi, who heads a commission charged with removing former ranking Baath Party members from public office, told reporters at a Baghdad news conference that the Iraqi government had changed course and was now trying to bring more Baathists back into government.

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, once embraced and then shunned by the Bush administration, held talks with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Monday, but the Pentagon did not allow television cameras to record any part of the visit. Chalabi also held a meeting at the White House with Vice President Dick Cheney, but Cheney's office would not provide any details.

Iraq's interim government announced arrest warrants Sunday for special tribunal head Salem Chalabi, on murder charges, and former Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi, on counterfeiting charges. Ahmad Chalabi, a longtime opposition leader, was a Pentagon favorite in the years leading up to the Iraq war but fell out of favor in the spring over allegations that his political faction gave flawed intelligence to U.S. agents and leaked American secrets to Iran.

Iraqi authorities will arrest Iraqi National Congress party leader Ahmad Chalabi after the Eid al-Adha holiday, interim Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan said Friday. Shaalan's statement followed allegations by Chalabi that the defense minister had shifted $500 million out of the ministry. That led to charges and countercharges by the two Shiite politicians, who are running for parliament on separate tickets in the Jan. 30 national election.

For an administration in political trouble, the distraction of a high-profile foreign visitor often serves as a welcome respite. But today's visit by Iraq's controversial deputy premier, Ahmad Chalabi, is hardly that. Chalabi's planned meetings with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow and national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley have heightened the debate swirling around the administration's use of intelligence to make the case for war against Iraq.

Iraqi lawmakers overwhelmingly approved an ethnically and religiously diverse Cabinet on Thursday, but gaping holes in the new administration and continued sectarian wrangling marred the historic day. Five ministries, including oil and defense, received only caretaker chiefs. Two deputy premierships also remained unfilled, indicating that the long negotiations to seat the nation's first freely elected government in half a century were not yet concluded.