Word: chalabied
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...Ahmad Chalabi likes to sleep in. He does his work at night, engaging in endless back-room meetings and talk sessions that often drag on past midnight. On most days he rises late and eats breakfast alone--but last Thursday his wake-up call came early. At 10 a.m., five armored humvees pulled up outside Chalabi's two-story house in west Baghdad. While U.S. soldiers cordoned off the street, seven Iraqi police officers broke down the front door and stormed the living room...
...Chalabi stumbled downstairs to find cops rummaging through his effects and preparing to arrest one of his drivers. "What are you doing here?" he said. "Get out of my house." Upon recognizing Chalabi, a police captain put down his gun and produced arrest warrants for seven of Chalabi's lieutenants. The captain insisted that the raid wasn't at his instigation. "He had no idea whose house it was," says Haider Musawi, an aide to Chalabi. "He said they were just following American orders...
...Chalabi, who four months ago could still boast of Oval Office privileges, being targeted in his own home by his former patrons was stunning enough. But he could do nothing to stop what happened next. An hour and a half after the police finished searching Chalabi's house, a second contingent of cops burst into a compound several blocks away--an ornate mansion known as China House, which serves as the headquarters of Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (I.N.C.). The Iraqis pointed guns at Chalabi's guards and ordered them to load the police vehicles with the office's computers...
...occupation marked by dizzying strategy shifts and policy repudiations, the U.S.'s abandonment of Chalabi may prove to be the most head-snapping reversal of all. A little more than a year ago, a triumphant Chalabi flew into Iraq escorted by U.S. special forces, having achieved his decade-long goal of persuading the U.S. to overthrow Saddam Hussein. But U.S. officials say last week's raid was the culmination of months of irritation with Chalabi over his discredited prewar claims about Saddam's weapons programs, the suspected corruption of I.N.C. members and Chalabi's criticism of the U.S. plan...
...interview with TIME, Chalabi dismissed the notion that he may have been working as an agent for Tehran. "Total nonsense," Chalabi says. "They don't need us to pass information to them. They have scores and scores of agents all over this country." The I.N.C. has made no secret of its friendliness with the Iranian government, which supported the campaign to topple Saddam. "My relationships with Iran are excellent," Chalabi says. For years, the I.N.C. has maintained an office in Tehran with the full knowledge of the U.S. State Department. In fact, a top deputy to Habib...