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.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
RSS