Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and one-time candidate of Washington's neo-conservatives as future leader of Iraq, appears set to be denied a senior role in the future government.
The man once championed by both the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney has become the focus of criticism by ordinary Iraqis, his former political allies and international officials involved in the country's reconstructiothat Chalabi is likely to be the most senior of a number of members of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) who will be sidelined when a new interim government is selected to run Iraq after the transfer of sovereignty on 30 June.
According to the newspaper, Washington is also considering cutting off the US$340,000 monthly stipend to Chalabi's INC party, which has been accused of inappropriately using the money to lobby in the US.
Chalabi and the INC are also accused of being the main source of much of the -- now disproved -- intelligence, fed to the CIA and other agencies, about Saddam's WMD programs, which formed a large part of the case for invasion.
The former financier (who is still sought in Jordan for theft from his own bank) has presided over a shambolic program of de-Baathification, say insiders. In an address on Friday designed to promote national reconciliation, Iraq's American administrator, Paul Bremer, said complaints that the program was "unevenly and unjustly" administered were "legitimate" and that the program had been "poorly implemented."
At the center of those allegations are claims that Chalabi's associates had favored those who had either joined the INC or given money to it.
Although similar allegations have been leveled against other Iraqi parties and the ministries they run, Chalabi appears to have sealed his fate by infuriating Bremer and his masters in Washington by his behavior, which officials have come to regard as divisive and self-promoting.
The final straw is understood to be Chalabi's denunciation of a US decision to allow some former Baathists to return to office. He claimed it was the equivalent of allowing Nazis to return to office.
Chalabi's fall from grace has been a sharp reversal of fortune for the suave exile, who was returned to Iraq with his grandly named Iraqi Free Forces by the US days after the fall of Saddam.
An early source of tension, say officials, was the INC's rapid seizure of vast numbers of documents taken from the offices of Iraq's intelligence agencies which the INC began to exploit, handing out a CD of digests most days to the Defense Intelligence Agency packaged for its own ends.
Chalabi also quickly exerted effective control over the Ministry of Finance, to a such a degree that ministers would not make important decisions without consulting him.
The rift with Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) began, however, with Chalabi's grandstanding over one of the most shocking terrorist attacks to hit Baghdad, the bombing of the UN headquarters at the Canal Hotel, in which UN envoy Sergio de Mello died.
At the time Chalabi claimed publicly that he had had "intelligence" warning of the attack -- a claim that proved to be untrue.
Senior CPA officials were also incandescent over Chalabi's key role in the walk-out of the Shiite parties that humiliatingly delayed the signing of Iraq's interim constitution after weeks of negotiations.
But it has not only been the perception of Chalabi as a troublemaker with little public support that has weighed against him.
Increasingly, officials have also complained that his interventions on the Iraqi Governing Council have appeared to be mainly for the benefit of himself and the INC.
In one incident, during the introduction of the new Iraqi dinar, CPA sources complain bitterly that Chalabi insisted that the old currency should be incinerated -- rather than buried, as had been planned -- only for the incineration contract to go to an associate of Chalabi.
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
A Japanese city would urge all smartphone users to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school under a proposed ordinance that includes no penalties. The limit — which would be recommended for all residents in Toyoake City — would not be binding and there would be no penalties incurred for higher usage, the draft ordinance showed. The proposal aims “to prevent excessive use of devices causing physical and mental health issues... including sleep problems,” Mayor Masafumi Koki said yesterday. The draft urges elementary-school students to avoid smartphones after 9pm, and junior-high students and older are advised not
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has fired his national police chief, who gained attention for leading the separate arrests of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on orders of the International Criminal Court and televangelist Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for alleged child sex trafficking. Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin did not cite a reason for the removal of General Nicolas Torre as head of the 232,000-member national police force, a position he was appointed to by Marcos in May and which he would have held until 2027. He was replaced by another senior police general, Jose
POWER CONFLICT: The US president threatened to deploy National Guards in Baltimore. US media reports said he is also planning to station troops in Chicago US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to deploy National Guard troops to yet another Democratic stronghold, the Maryland city of Baltimore, as he seeks to expand his crackdown on crime and immigration. The Republican’s latest online rant about an “out of control, crime-ridden” city comes as Democratic state leaders — including Maryland Governor Wes Moore — line up to berate Trump on a high-profile political stage. Trump this month deployed the National Guard to the streets of Washington, in a widely criticized show of force the president said amounts to a federal takeover of US capital policing. The Guard began carrying
RSS