Word: chalabis
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...remember Ahmad Chalabi. He was once the Bush Administration's favorite Iraqi exile. His group, the Iraqi National Congress, provided all sorts of wondrous reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (some of which Judith Miller disseminated in the New York Times). He convinced certified hardfellahs like Vice President Dick Cheney that American troops would be greeted in Baghdad with flowers and candy. He was smooth as oil and wicked smart, with a math degree from M.I.T. More than a few Bush Administration officials hoped Chalabi would quickly take control in Baghdad after Saddam was deposed, and allow...
...Wrong, of course. And when the Iraqis proved to be just a bit less welcoming than Chalabi had predicted, and no WMD were found, he fell hard. By the spring of 2004, Chalabi's home was raided by U.S. forces. His associates were suspected of fraud, torture, kidnapping and misuse of U.S. funds. Chalabi was suspected of spying for the Iranians. But nothing much came of that. Chalabi soon leveraged American disapproval into Baghdad street cred and a burgeoning career as a leader of the Shi'ite coalition. He currently serves as Deputy Prime Minister in Ibrahim al-Jaafari...
...Bush Administration harbors a gossamer strand of hope that the Dec. 15 election will finally produce a strong Iraqi government, a real coalition of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds. The Administration also realizes it may take a supremely oleaginous political thug, perhaps someone as rare and fetid as Ahmad Chalabi, to bring...
...Washington has reversed course again now that Chalabi has wheeled and dealed himself into one of three Deputy Prime Minister positions in Iraq. The day after Rice dialed him, an Administration official says, Vice President Dick Cheney phoned to congratulate Chalabi (and placed a similar call to another Deputy Prime Minister). U.S. officials have taken no action in the probe into Chalabi's dealings with Iran. And they argue that he will play a vital role in Iraq's fledgling democracy after he brought together disparate Shi'ite parties to make the January elections a success...
...allegedly provided discredited prewar intelligence on weapons of mass destruction and whose relationship with Iran remains murky. "I never understood why he was embraced so fervently in the first place," says James Steinberg, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution. But as the White House reaches out to Chalabi, the real question is whether he will return the embrace. "There are only four or five in this town he will listen to now," says a government official in Washington who has worked closely with Chalabi. "He forgets nothing." --By Brian Bennett