Ahmed Chalabi

Ahmed Chalabi أحمد الجلبي
Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq
In office 1 May 2005 – 20 May 2006
Prime Minister	Ibrahim al-Jaafari
Preceded by	Rowsch Shaways
Succeeded by	Barham Salih
Minister of Oil
In office 16 April 2005 – 1 January 2006
Prime Minister	Ibrahim al-Jaafari
Preceded by	Bahr al-Ulloum
Succeeded by	Hussain al-Shahristani
President of the Governing Council of Iraq
In office 1 September 2003 – 30 September 2003
Leader	Paul Bremer
Preceded by	Ibrahim al-Jaafari
Succeeded by	Ayad Allawi
Personal details
Born	Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi (1944-10-30)30 October 1944 Kadhimiya, Iraq
Died	3 November 2015(2015-11-03) (aged 71) Kadhimiya, Iraq
Political party	Iraqi National Congress
Spouse(s)	Leila Osseiran
Alma mater	Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of Chicago
Religion	Shiite Islam

Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi^[1] (Arabic: أحمد عبد الهادي الجلبي‎; 30 October 1944 – 3 November 2015) was an Iraqi politician, a founder of the Iraqi National Congress (INC).

He was interim Minister of Oil in Iraq^[2] in April–May 2005 and December 2005 – January 2006 and Deputy Prime Minister from May 2005 to 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 given a post. Once dubbed the "George Washington of Iraq"^[3] by American supporters, he later fell out of favor and came under investigation by several U.S. government sources. He was also the subject of a 2008 biography by investigative journalist Aram Roston, The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, And Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi^[4] and a 2011 biography by 60 Minutes producer Richard Bonin, Arrows of the Night: Ahmad Chalabi's Long Journey to Triumph in Iraq.^[5]

Chalabi was a controversial figure, especially in the United States, for many reasons:

In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), with the assistance of lobbying powerhouse BKSH & Associates,^[6] provided a major portion of the information on which U.S. Intelligence based its condemnation of the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, including reports of weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Most, if not all, of this information has turned out to be false and Chalabi has been called a fabricator.^[7]

That, combined with the fact that Chalabi subsequently boasted, in an interview with the British Sunday Telegraph, about the impact that their alleged falsifications had on American policy, led to a falling out between him and the U.S. government.

Furthermore, Chalabi was found guilty in the Petra banking scandal in Jordan.

In January 2012, a French intelligence official stated that they believed Chalabi to be an Iranian agent.^[8]

Early life

Chalabi was the son of a prominent Shi'a family,^[9] one of the wealthy power elite of Baghdad. He was born at Kadhimiya in 1944. His family, who dated back 300 years to the Sultanate ran Iraq’s oldest commercial bank under the British-backed Kingdom of Iraq.^[10] His father was a wealthy grain merchant and member of the Iraqi parliament, became head of the senate when King Abdullah was assassinated.

His family retired from public life to a farmhouse near Baghdad when the military seized power. Chalabi left Iraq with his family in 1958, following the 14 July Revolution,^[10][11] and spent most of his life in the United States and the United Kingdom.^[12] He was educated at Baghdad College and Seaford College in Sussex, England before leaving for America.

Western education

In exile, following the Ba'ath party takeover, his family acted as the Iraqi Shia clergy’s bankers.^[10] In the mid-1960s, he studied with cryptographer Whitfield Diffie at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from which he received a bachelor of science degree in mathematics.^[13] In 1969, he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago under the direction of George Glauberman on the Theory of Knots.^[14] after which he took a position in the mathematics department at the American University of Beirut. He published three mathematics papers between 1973 and 1980, in the field of abstract algebra.

In 1971, Chalabi married Leila Osseiran, daughter of Lebanese politician Adil Osseiran. They had four children.^[15] Whilst still at Beirut the civil war broke out in 1975, so he moved to Jordan and found work as an interpreter.

Business career

Chalabi was a brave and shrewd investor amassing a fortune of $100 million. During his life he was challenged many times, accused of corruption. In 1977, he founded the Petra Bank in Jordan with Crown Prince Hassan, the King's brother.^[12] In May 1989, the Governor of the Central Bank of Jordan, Mohammed Said Nabulsi, issued a decree ordering all banks in the country to deposit 35% of their reserves with the Central Bank.^[16] Petra Bank was the only bank that was unable to meet this requirement. An investigation was launched which led to accusations of embezzlement and false accounting. The bank failed, causing a $350 million bail-out by the Central Bank.^[17] Chalabi fled the country, in the boot of a Jordanian prince's car,^[10] before the authorities could react. Chalabi was convicted and sentenced in absentia for bank fraud by a Jordanian military tribunal to 22 years in prison. Chalabi maintained that his prosecution was a politically motivated effort to discredit him sponsored by Saddam Hussein.^[12]

Exile in the UK

Living abroad by 1992 in London, prohibited to return for fear of his life, he set up the Iraqi National Congress with an agenda of regime change for his homeland. The organization was open to all ethnic Iraqis - Kurds and Arabs - as well as Sunnis and Shias. Already a fluent English speaker he turned his attention to Washington DC.

In 1995 after preparation and lobbying he persuaded President Clinton to fund an expedition into northern Iraq to use subterfuge to start an insurgency. Chalabi was convinced that the Iraqi military would rise up to usurp the dictator. The commanders to whom he had spoken, were the same who openly supported Saddam and crushed his opponents in the Kurdish and Shi'ite revolts. The insurgency failed, lacked the promised ground troops, and 100 insurgents were killed by the military. The command structure of INC fell apart with factional infighting. Chalabi was banned from those frequent visits to CIA HQ at Langley, Virginia. Nonetheless Chalabi was doggedly determined: in 1998 Congress passed the Iraqi Liberation Act making it American law that "regime change" would happen in Iraq.

It was reported by BBC News in May 2005 that the Jordanian government was considering whether to pardon Chalabi, in part to ease the relations between Jordan and the new Iraqi government of which Chalabi was a member.^[18] According to one report, Chalabi proposed a $32 million compensation fund for depositers affected by Petra Bank's failure. The website for Petra Bank contains a press release stating that Chalabi would refuse the pardon.^[19] Although Chalabi always maintained the case was a plot to frame him by Baghdad, the issue was revisited when the U.S. State Department raised questions about the accounting practices of the Iraqi National Congress (INC).^[12] According to The New York Times, "Chalabi insisted on a public apology, which the Jordanians refused to give."^[15]

Chalabi headed the executive council of the INC, an umbrella Iraqi opposition group created in 1992 for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.^[11] The INC received major funding and assistance from the United States.^[17] Chalabi was involved in organizing a resistance movement among Kurds in northern Iraq in the early mid-1990s.^[12][17] When that effort was crushed and hundreds of his supporters were killed, Chalabi fled the country.^[12] Chalabi lobbied in Washington for the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act (passed October 1998). This earmarked US$97 million to support Iraqi opposition groups.^[12] But in 2001 it was revealed that INC was accused of false accounting and irregularities. During the period from March 2000 to September 2003, the U.S. State Department paid nearly $33 million to the INC, according to a General Accounting Office report released in 2004,some of which was used to purchase office artefacts.^[20]

Invasion of Iraq

Chalabi in discussion with Paul Bremer and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

Before the Iraq War (2003), Chalabi enjoyed close political and business relationships with some members of the U.S. government, including some prominent neoconservatives within the Pentagon. Chalabi was 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. 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.^[21] He was a special guest of First Lady Laura Bush at the 2004 State of the Union Address.^[22]

Was he genuine or a fraud?

The CIA was largely skeptical of Chalabi and the INC, but information allegedly from his group (most famously from a defector codenamed "Curveball") made its way into intelligence dossiers used by President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to justify an invasion of Iraq. "Curveball", Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, fed officials hundreds of pages of bogus "firsthand" descriptions of mobile biological weapons factories on wheels and rails.^[23] Secretary of State Colin Powell later used this information in a U.N. presentation trying to garner support for the war, despite warnings from German intelligence that "Curveball" was fabricating claims.^[23] Since then, the CIA has admitted that the defector made up the story, and Powell said in 2011 the information should not have been used in his presentation.^[23] 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.^[24]

The INC often worked with the media, most notably with Judith Miller, concerning her WMD stories for The New York Times starting on 26 February 1998.^[25] 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 Chalabi's advocates was American Enterprise Institute's Iraq specialist Danielle Pletka. Chalabi received advice on media and television presentation techniques from the Irish scriptwriter and commentator Eoghan Harris prior to the invasion of Iraq.^[26]

In April as U.S. forces took control during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, Chalabi entered with allied troops the southern town of Shatrah. 300 US-trained FIF (Freedom for Iraq Fighters) expected opposition, but none emerged. Thousands of Iraqis cheered the troops. 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 in The New York Times.^[27]

In August 2003, Chalabi was the only candidate whose unfavorable ratings exceeded his favorable ones with Iraqis in a State Department poll.^[28] In a survey of nearly 3,000 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 percent 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."^[29]

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.^[30]

Falling out with the U.S., 2004–05

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 was a Shi'ite). Beginning 25 January 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 contended that documents in his possession detailed the misconduct, but he did not provide any documents or other evidence. The U.S. sharply criticized Chalabi's Oil for Food investigation as undermining the credibility of its own.

Additionally, Chalabi and other members of the INC were 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 19 May 2004 the U.S. government discontinued their regular payments to Chalabi for information he provided. Iraqi police, supported by U.S. soldiers, raided his offices and residence on 20 May, taking documents and computers, presumably to be used as evidence.^[31] A major target of the raid was Aras Habib, Chalabi's long-term director of intelligence, who controlled the vast network of agents bankrolled by U.S. funding. The U.S. announced that they had stopped funding the INC, having previously paid the organization $330,000 per month.^[31]

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.^[32] Chalabi allegedly learned of the code through a drunk American involved in the code-breaking operation.^[32] Chalabi denied all of the charges, which nothing ever came of.

An arrest warrant for alleged counterfeiting was issued for Chalabi on 8 August 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.^[33] Chalabi returned to Iraq on 10 August 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.^[33]

On 1 September 2004, Chalabi told reporters of an assassination attempt made on him near Latifiya, a town south of Baghdad. Chalabi reported he was returning from a meeting with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (whose trust Chalabi enjoyed)^[10] 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, at the time.

He regained enough credibility to be made deputy prime minister on 28 April 2005.^[33] At the same time he was made acting oil minister,^[33][34] 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.^[35]

In November 2005, Chalabi traveled to the U.S. and met with top U.S. government officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.^[36] At this time Chalabi also traveled to Iran to meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Political activity in Iraq, 2005–15

The Iraqi National Congress, headed by Chalabi, was a part of the United Iraqi Alliance in the 2005 legislative election. 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; however, Ibrahim al-Jaafari later emerged as the consensus candidate for prime minister.^[37]

Prior to the December 2005 elections, the Iraqi National Congress had 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.^[38] 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. He was refused a seat in the cabinet. Dogged by allegations, still unproven, of corruption he retorted that he had never "participated in any scheme of intelligence against the United States."^[39]

Chalabi attended the 2006 Bilderberg Conference meeting outside of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. In October 2007, Chalabi was appointed by Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to head the Iraqi services committee, a consortium of eight service ministries and two Baghdad municipal posts tasked with the "surge" plan's next phase, restoring electricity, health, education and local security services to Baghdad neighborhoods.^[40] "The key is going to be getting the concerned local citizens—and all the citizens—feeling that this government is reconnected with them.... [Chalabi] agrees with that," said Gen. David Petraeus. Chalabi "is an important part of the process," said Col. Steven Boylan, Petraeus' spokesman. "He has a lot of energy."^[40] In April 2008, journalist Melik Kaylan wrote about Chalabi, "Arguably, he has, more than anyone in the country, evolved a detailed sense of what ails Baghdadis and how to fix things."^[41]

After the invasion Chalabi was placed in charge of "de-Ba'athification"—the removal of senior office holders judged to have been close supporters of the deposed Saddam Hussein. The role fell into disuse, but in early 2010 Chalabi was accused of reviving this dormant post to eliminate his political enemies, especially Sunnis. The banning of some 500 candidates prior to the general election of 7 March 2010 at the initiative of Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress was reported to have badly damaged previously improving relations between Shias and Sunnis.^[42]

On 26 January 2012, the New York Times reported Western intelligence officials expressing concern that Chalabi was working with the leading opposition group in Bahrain, Al Wefaq National Islamic Society. A French intelligence official said, "When we hear that some members of the opposition are in touch with Hezbollah or with shady figures like the Iraqi Ahmed Chalabi, of whom we think he is acting on behalf of Iran, then this worries us". The connection between Chalabi and Al Wefaq was acknowledged by Jawad Fairooz, secretary general of Wefaq and a former member of Parliament in Bahrain. Fairooz said, "Mr Chalabi has helped us with contacts in Washington like other people have done and we thank them."^[44] During an interview in 2014 he was shown to be frail and depressed about his country's future

Iraq is a mess. Daesh is organised, with one command, united and well run, and we are so fragmented. We have no discipline, no command structure, no effective plans.^[39]

Death

Chalabi died on 3 November 2015, four days after his 71st birthday, having apparently suffered a heart attack at his home in Kadhimiya, Baghdad.^[9][45] When he died, he was a current Member of the Iraqi Parliament, serving as the chairman of the Finance Committee.^[46]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ahmed Chalabi.

• Appearances on C-SPAN

Prime Ministers of Iraq (List) British Mandate of Mesopotamia (1920–1932) al Gillani as-Sa'dun† al-Askari† al-Hashimi† Tawfiq al-Suwaydi Naji al-Suwaydi as-Said† Kingdom of Iraq (1932–1958) Shawkat al-Gaylani al-Midfai† al-Aiyubi† al-Hashimi† Sulayman as-Said† H. Pachachi Tawfiq al-Suwaydi Arshad al-Umari Jabr as-Sadr Muzahim al-Pachachi Mustafa al-Umari Mahmud† al-Jamali Arshad al-Umari Mirjan Baban Republic of Iraq (1958–2003) Qasim† al-Bakr† Yahya† ar-Razzaq† al-Bazzaz† Talib Arif† Yahya† an-Naif† al-Bakr Hussein Hammadi Zubeidi as-Samarrai Hussein Iraqi Governing Council (2003–2004) al-Ulloum* al-Jaafari Chalabi Allawi Talabani al-Hakim A. Pachachi Hamid al-Ulloum Barzani Salim al-Yawer Republic of Iraq (since 2004) Allawi* al-Jaafari al-Maliki al-Abadi * interim † military