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.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS