Once cozy with the US Depart-ment of Defense, Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi now is under fire -- literally.
Iraqi police backed by US soldiers on Thursday raided the home and offices of the controversial figure who provided the US administration with prewar intelligence on supposed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, including the now-discredited information about mobile labs whose true use is still a matter of debate.
Despite Chalabi's seat on the US-handpicked Iraqi Governing Council, it seems the US administration is going out of its way to ensure that the man who made a career lobbying to get rid of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has no American-backed political future in Iraq.
It's unclear why Chalabi's home was raided on Thursday. A senior coalition official said an Iraqi judge had issued several warrants, and details would be released later. Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) spokesman Dan Senor said Chalabi and his group were not the targets.
Haidar Musawi, an aide of Chalabi's, said three security guards were arrested, but they weren't linked to any allegations. Chalabi said his chief security official, Aras Habib, was named in one warrant but not detained.
Danielle Pletka, a vice president at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said she believed the raid was likely "political manipulation in order to disable somebody who has been a thorn in the side of the CPA.
"We need the United Nations right now, and Chalabi is the prime mover behind the investigation in the oil-for-food program," she said.
The CIA -- long suspicious of the information provided by Chalabi's group -- has not been paying it for intelligence.
Berg arrests
Meanwhile, four people were detained for the killing of American Nicholas Berg, who was decapitated on a videotape released by his killers, an Iraqi security official said yesterday. Two of the four suspects were later released.
The suspects were former members of Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen paramilitary organization, the Iraqi official said. Iraqi police arrested them a week ago in a house in Salaheddin province, north of Baghdad, he said.
The group was led by Yasser al-Sabawi, a nephew of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi official said. He said US intelligence had asked the Iraqis to hand over the suspects, but they had not done so. Al-Sabawi was not among them, the official said.
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