Ahmed
Chalabi And The
Liberation Of Iraq
By Rick Kelly
30 April 2004
World Socialist Website
With
its lies about weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda connections
fully exposed, the White House is now arguing that its criminal war
on Iraq is being waged to bring liberation and democracy to the Iraqi
people. Americas objective in Iraq is limited and it is
firm, declared President Bush at a recent press conference. We
seek an independent, free and secure Iraq.
The fraudulent nature
of this independence and freedom is embodied
in the figure of Ahmed Chalabi, one of the nine rotating presidents
on the so-called Iraqi Governing Council. While Chalabi is routinely
presented in the US media as a legitimate representative and spokesman
for the Iraqi people, he is a well-known US stooge and a convicted criminal.
Inside Iraq, as
well as throughout the Arab world, Chalabi is regarded as a cynical
careerist, wholly subservient to US interests. His position is so compromised
in the region that even the US Central Intelligence Agency and State
Department have come to regard him as a liability.
That the White House
has actively promoted Chalabi further underscores the neo-colonialist
nature of the US-led occupation of Iraq.
Privilege and corruption
Ahmed Chalabi was
born in 1945 into one of the wealthiest and best connected families
in Iraq. A number of Chalabis held high-ranking government posts under
the monarchy installed by the British colonialists. Ahmeds grandfather
served in several Iraqi cabinets, while his father was president of
the ceremonial senate.
The Chalabis amassed
a considerable fortune under the monarchist dictatorship. Ahmed enjoyed
a privileged upbringing, and was educated by American Jesuits at Baghdad
College. The 1958 coup that saw the overthrow of the monarchy threw
the Chalabi family into turmoil. They quickly fled Iraq and went into
exile, living at different times in England, Jordan and the United States.
Ahmed resumed his
education abroad, going on to study mathematics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. In 1969 he received a doctorate from the University
of Chicago and then took up an academic post in the American University
of Beirut.
This job was nothing
but a temporary arrangement. From an early age, Chalabi had been groomed
for a life of power and wealth. His burning ambition for a successful
career in politics and business precluded a life in academia.
While in Lebanon,
Chalabi developed his connections in the Middle East. In 1972 he married
the daughter of the speaker of the Lebanese parliament. He also made
full use of his familys monarchical contacts. The Chalabi family
maintained their ties with the Jordanian Hashemite monarchy after the
coup in Iraq, and in 1977 Crown Prince Hassan invited Ahmed to establish
a bank in Jordan.
Chalabis Petra
became the second largest commercial bank in the country. The rotten
foundation underlying its growth was only uncovered in the aftermath
of a severe financial and currency crisis that gripped Jordan in the
late 1980s. As the Jordanian dinars value plummeted, the countrys
central bank demanded that financial institutions deposit 35 percent
of their holdings into the central banks reserves. Petra was the
only bank that proved unable to comply. A subsequent audit revealed
evidence of unprecedented fraud and theft.
Foreign exchange
assets on the banks books had disappeared, while millions of dollars
of depositors money had been illegally transferred to other businesses
and financial institutions owned by the Chalabi family. This extraordinary
looting operation cost Jordan an estimated $US500 millionequivalent
to approximately 10 percent of the countrys gross domestic product.
Escaping prosecution,
Chalabi fled Jordan in August 1989. Three years later, after a comprehensive
investigation, he was charged on 31 counts of theft, embezzlement and
illegal currency speculation. He was sentenced, in absentia, to 22 years
hard labour. Four of Chalabis brothers were also convicted over
the affair.
After Petras
demise, the authorities in Switzerland shut down two Swiss-based financial
institutions run by the Chalabi family, amid reports of illegal practices.
Two of the brothers who had been involved in the Petra fraud, Jawad
and Hazem Chalabi, were prosecuted on charges of falsifying documents,
and received six-month suspended sentences in September 2002.
The Chalabis continue
to maintain their innocence. Ahmed maintains that the entire Petra Bank
scandal was a political plot engineered by Saddam Hussein and the king
of Jordan, who supposedly feared his knowledge of secret Jordan-Iraq
arms sales.
This account is
flatly rejected by a number of authoritative sources in Jordan. Mohammad
Said Al Nabulsi, the former head of the Central Bank and supervisor
of the investigation into the scandal, rejected Chalabis claims.
We are talking here about a half a billion dollars lost. This
is not political. It is a totally economic crime.
Manoeuvres with US imperialism
The disastrous end
to Chalabis banking career coincided with the deepening crisis
in the Gulf. In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam Husseins
regime, though severely weakened, remained in power. Elements within
the US political establishment were angered by the decision of President
George Bush senior not to launch a full-scale invasion of Iraq.
Chalabi recognised
that a propitious opening existed for a pro-American democratic
Iraqi opposition figurehead, and he thrust himself forward. From the
outset of his new career as an Iraqi oppositionist, Chalabi
sought the closest relations with the most reactionary and militaristic
faction of the American political establishment.
On a trip to the
US in 1985, Chalabi had already met and befriended Richard Perle, a
leading neo-conservative. Both men had studied at the University
of Chicago under the nuclear strategist and influential hawk,
Albert Wohlstetter. Perle, then working in the Reagan administration,
became Chalabis fervent supporter in Washington. By the mid 1990s,
Chalabi had met with a number of powerful Republican figures, including
Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.
These people immediately
recognised Chalabi as a man with whom they could do business. In return
for a chance to rule his home country, he was prepared to offer unqualified
support for their neo-colonial agenda. Chalabi made repeated calls,
for example, for Iraqs oil industry to be privatised and opened
up for American corporations. In October 2002, he held a series of secret
meetings with three major US oil companies, reassuring them of this
position. American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil,
he later told the Washington Post.
Richard Perle, Paul
Wolfowitz and other Republicans also promoted Chalabi as a pro-Israel
ally. Chalabi has spoken at the Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs in Washington, and, according to some reports, has visited Israel.
He has called on all Arab countries to recognise the Zionist state.
In a 1998 interview
with the Jerusalem Post, Chalabi described Arab hostility to Israel
as an esoteric confrontation that has become a substitute for
real progress toward democracy and human rights in Iraq. He discussed
the oil pipeline between Haifa and Kirkuk that existed until 1948, saying
that it symbolised the basis for future cooperation between Israel and
Iraq.
I believe
that in the context of peace in the Middle East there is definite economic
partnership there and a definite prospect for development of economic
avenues of cooperation, he said. The Jerusalem Post interview
(which described Chalabi as an elegant revolutionary with a vision
of peace) did not record him making a single criticism of Israels
treatment of the Palestinians.
The Iraqi National Congress
Chalabis close
personal connections in Washington have always been the sole basis of
his political prestige. Without the patronage of his Pentagon friends,
Chalabi would be nothing more than a disgraced banker. Completely lacking
any base of support within Iraq, Chalabis political fortunes were
directly tied to those of US imperialism.
The vehicle for
Chalabis ambitions became the Iraqi National Congress (INC), founded
in 1992. The INC was sponsored by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
as a loose alliance of Kurdish factions, monarchists, Islamists, former
Baathist generals and exiled businessmen. The CIA poured an estimated
$100 million into the organisation in the early 1990s.
From its inception,
the INC was deeply divided over how to organise Husseins overthrow.
Chalabi favoured the idea of raising a militia and launching a frontal
attack on the Iraqi army. He maintained that with adequate American
support, this militia could march, virtually unopposed, into Baghdad.
The Iraqi army would desert en masse at the first sight of an armed
force fighting Saddam.
These fantastic
schemes, which bore no relationship to what has happening inside Iraq,
were widely ridiculed. Chalabis opponents derisively referred
to him as Spartacus, while the CIA, which preferred to plot
for a military coup in Baghdad, grew increasingly wary.
In 1995, Chalabi
attempted to carry out his plan. From Kurdish northern Iraq, he rallied
INC forces for an attack on the capital. The adventure ended in disaster,
with the Iraqi army routing Chalabis gunmen.
This failure had
immediate consequences. The INC began to break apart, with Chalabis
erstwhile allies bitterly complaining about his egotism and autocratic
leadership. Undaunted, he consolidated his leadership of the rump INC,
maintaining it as his personal political machine.
The antipathy between
Chalabi and the CIA deepened, as the Iraqi exile refused to accept any
responsibility for his failed offensive. The debacle was caused, he
insisted, by a lack of US support, which he even described as a betrayal.
Within the CIA and State Department, Chalabi was now seen as an unreliable
adventurer, and INC funding was cut off.
This decision enraged
Chalabis supporters in Washington. Following an intense lobbying
effort, Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998. Chalabi played
a key role in organising support for the act, at the same time winning
several new admirers, including Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman.
The unprecedented
act enshrined regime change in US law. Iraqi opposition
groups were promised $97 million, not all of which was forthcoming.
Most of what was, however, ended up in the INC. Following allegations
of financial improprieties, an official audit was launched in 2001.
This revealed widespread misuse of the funds, including the purchase
of artwork for the INCs Washington office and gym memberships
for staff. According to the Washington Post, after the White House intervened,
the audit was halted.
Preparing the invasion
The coming to power
of the Bush administration in 2000 opened up new possibilities for Chalabi.
The criminal, gangster elements in the Bush administration saw in the
Iraqi politician a reflection of their own political physiognomy. Chalabis
Washington friends were now in power, and began to exert an increasingly
powerful influence, especially after the September 11 terrorist attacks,
on the direction of US foreign policy.
As the war against
Iraq was being prepared in 2002, Chalabi did everything possible to
provide ammunition for the Bush administrations lies against the
Hussein regime. Making countless media appearances, Chalabi attempted
to terrorise the American public with claims of definitive proof of
an immanent Iraqi threat.
No lie was too outrageous.
Appearing on the Australian Broadcasting Commissions Lateline
program in July 2002, Chalabi was asked about evidence connecting Al
Qaeda to Saddam Hussein. We have evidence, he said, of
training of non-Iraqi Muslim fundamentalists in the arts and crafts
of terrorism in a big, secret facility just south of Baghdad. This facility
has been used to train hijackers on how to hijack an airline without
weapons. This [sic] is an airline parked there for the purpose of this
training. We have detailed information about the other training that
goes on there and we have detailed information about who is doing it,
who controls it and who gets the candidates for the training into such
facilities.
As well as these
efforts to connect Saddam Hussein with the September 11 bombings, Chalabi
linked the Iraqi regime to the anthrax attacks in Washington. The far-right
judicialwatch.org asked Chalabi what would happen if Iraq were not invaded.
You had a whiff of the consequences of an anthrax attack in the
United States, a limited effort, he replied. Saddam has
tons of anthrax which he has developed. Saddam has made small containers
of anthrax and hes storing them in private homes and factories,
in wells all over the country. Those things cannot be uncovered by inspectors.
Chalabi and the
INC also aided the administrations deliberate manipulation and
distortion of evidence by supplying several defectors who claimed to
have inside knowledge of Saddams weapons programs. These informants
provided a large proportion of so-called Iraqi intelligence for American,
British, and other allied agencies.
One of the most
important defectors organised by the INC was codenamed Curveball.
Curveball claimed to have been a chemical engineer in Iraq who helped
design and build mobile biological weapons facilities. His intelligence
formed what one senior US official described as the main pillar
of Colin Powells presentation to the UN Security Council in February
2003. Curveball, a number of US media outlets reported earlier
this month, was the brother of one of Ahmed Chalabis leading aides.
Chalabis propaganda
services for the Bush administration continued after the invasion of
Iraq. As the failure to find any evidence of weapons of mass destruction
developed into something of a political embarrassment for the White
House, New York Times journalist Judith Miller published a series of
sensational articles, claiming to have found definitive proof of Saddams
secret arsenal. In May last year, it was revealed that it was Chalabi
and the INC who provided the material for Millers high-profile
exclusives.
Despite the exposure
of all his lies, Chalabi remains unrepentant. We are heroes in
error, he told the London Daily Telegraph in February. As
far as were concerned weve been entirely successful. That
tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said
before is not important.
This assessment
is evidently shared by the US authorities. The INC continues to receive
approximately $340,000 a month from the Defence Intelligence Agency
for information on the Iraqi resistance.
Return to Iraq
Chalabi was one
of the first exiled politicians to return to Iraq in the aftermath of
the invasion. A US air convoy ferried him, along with approximately
600 members of his so-called Iraqi Free Forces from northern Iraq to
Nasiriya. Some of these militiamen were fresh from training in a US
military base in Hungary.
Chalabi then entered
Baghdad for the first time in 45 years. The carefully prepared operation
was effected with such speed that a number of Chalabis militiamen
were able to participate in the stage-managed toppling of Husseins
statue in Firdos Square.
Chalabi moved quickly
to assert his authority in the occupied city. Encouraged by the US military,
he seized a number of Baath Party properties and vehicles. The INC headquarters
were established in what Newsweek described as a luxury private
club with park-like grounds.
USA Today reported
Chalabis militia looting private homes and intimidating Baghdad
civilians. Several of his men were arrested by American forces while
robbing a bank. These criminal acts, carried out by the very forces
Chalabi hoped would form the nucleus of a rebuilt Iraqi national army,
proved something of an embarrassment to the US occupation. The INC caused
more trouble when one of its members proclaimed himself the mayor of
Baghdad.
None of this served
to deter Chalabis powerful patrons in the Bush administration.
He continued to receive support, playing an important political role
immediately after the invasion by making media appearances to inform
the American public about how grateful the Iraqis were for their liberation.
As resistance to the occupation developed in strength, he called for
mass reprisals against the Iraqi people.
Chalabi was rewarded
for his services with a seat on the Iraqi Governing Council, holding
the rotating presidency in September 2003. He was also given pride of
place next to Laura Bush at the presidents state of the union
address in January 2004.
Chalabi is currently
the senior member of the Governing Councils economic and finance
committee. As Newsweek has noted, in this position the convicted embezzler
has overseen the appointment of the minister of oil, the minister
of finance, the central bank governor, the trade minister, the head
of the trade bank and the designated managing director of the largest
commercial bank in the country.
As head of the De-Baathification
Commission, Chalabi wields such arbitrary power that even one of his
aides described him as a government within the government.
The Commission has the power to purge alleged Baathists from a wide
range of civil service and government posts. Chalabi also controls a
massive collection of secret Baathist files and documents.
Not surprisingly,
evidence has begun to emerge that Chalabi is, once again, involved in
corrupt activity. Two contracts worth a total of $400 million have recently
been awarded to a start-up company run by Chalabis old friend
and business partner, Abdul Huda Farouki. One of the contracts was for
securing Iraqs oil infrastructure. Members of Chalabis militia
now staff Faroukis security force, which guards a number of oil
installations and pipelines. Newsday cited an industry source
who claimed that Chalabi received a $2 million kickback for ensuring
that his friend won the contract.
Chalabi is widely
despised by ordinary Iraqis. He topped the list in a recent opinion
poll in which respondents were asked who was the least trusted political
figure in Iraq. Viewed as nothing more than a puppet of the Bush administration,
Chalabis ritual denial of any desire to rule Iraq is regarded
as a diplomatic ploy. George Washington turned [the presidency]
down many times, his chief aide, Francis Brooke, told Business
Week. I wouldnt be surprised if the Iraqi people prevail
on [Chalabi].
Reports have recently
surfaced, however, that Chalabi may be used as a scapegoat for the failure
to find any weapons of mass destruction, and could be sidelined after
the UN-supervised sham transfer of sovereignty, scheduled
for June 30. Time has reported that revelations that the INC provided
the Administration with faulty pre-war intelligence have forced even
his former Pentagon pals to back away. Says a White House aide: Im
not sure how many friends he has anymore.
There are others
in the US political establishment who are loath to part with such a
long-standing ally.
The Wall Street
Journal, for example, has condemned any move to replace Chalabi and
other trusted Governing Council members. It often seems that some
US officials have more respect for Iraqis who hate us than those who
share our values, its April 20 editorial stated.
Chalabis shared
values with the Bush administration will see him prosecuted for
war crimes against the Iraqi people in any genuinely free and democratic
Iraq.