- When Gen. Abdul Karim Qasim ousted the Iraqi monarchy
of King Faisal II in
- July 1958, many Iraqis, like the family of Ahmed Chalabi,
which had enjoyed close ties with the monarchy, were forced to flee the
country.
-
- Today, Chalabi is the man behind the self-declared government
that has come
- to power in Baghdad.
-
- Chalabi, a non-practising Shia, is reportedly a close
friend of the late Shah of Iran, the former Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan
and Col. Oliver North of the Reagan
-
- Administration, according to a recent paper on Chalabi
for the South Asia Analysis Group titled "Ahmed Chalabi: The Janos
Kadar of Iraq" by B. Raman, a Indian intelligence expert.
-
- The head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), Chalabi
comes from an
- aristocratic Shiite family that was connected to the
monarchy of Faisal. The
- Iraqi monarchy had been installed by the British when
they created the Iraqi
- state after the first World War.
-
- Chalabi's father was a member of the Faisal's Council
of Ministers and
- president of the senate nominated by Faisal and set up
to provide the Iraqi monarchy with a democratic facade.
-
- The Chalabi family fled to Jordan when King Faisal II
was overthrown in 1958
- by Qasim's group of army officers who had allegedly acted
in collusion with the
- Iraqi Communist Party.
-
- Years later, Chalabi amassed a great deal of wealth as
a banker in Jordan. However, in 1989, Chalabi was found guilty of embezzlement
and fraud in a military court in Jordan and was sentenced to 22 years.
Chalabi reportedly fled Jordan in the trunk of a car with over $20 million.
-
- It was alleged that during his association with the bank
Chalabi embezzled nearly $70 million and stashed it in secret Swiss bank
accounts.
-
- The financial improprieties that Chalabi was found to
have been directly involved in led to the collapse the Jordanian bank he
directed, Petra Bank.
-
- At the time of its crash, Petra was the third-largest
bank in Jordan, and the Jordanian government was forced to pay out $200
million to depositors who faced the loss of their savings.
-
- In 1992, Mr Chalabi was tried in absentia and sentenced
by a Jordanian court to 22 years jail on 31 charges of embezzlement, theft,
misuse of depositor funds and currency speculation.
- A report by Arthur Andersen subsequently found that Chalabi's
Petra Bank's assets had been overstated by some $200 million. Many of the
bank's bad loans were to Chalabi-linked companies in Switzerland and Lebanon.
-
- A detailed 500-page Technical Committee Report was subsequently
compiled for the Jordanian military attorney-general on June 10, 1990.
-
- In the report Chalabi was named as being the man at Petra
Bank who was directly responsible for "fictitious deposits and entries
to make the income ... appear larger."
-
- To this day, Chalabi insists that the charges were politically
charged and the fact that there has never been formal extradition attempts
prove the case was not genuine.
-
- Chalabi is considered by experts to be a long-time collaborator
with the CIA
- and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at the Pentagon.
-
- After fleeing Jordan, Chalabi went to Europe and founded
the INC in 1992 at a meeting of some anti-Saddam Hussein exiles held in
Vienna, Austria. James Woolsey, who became the Director of the CIA under
President Bill Clinton, made Chalabi's INC the cutting-edge of the CIA's
operations against Saddam Hussein. Chalabi allegedly became Woolsey's blue-eyed
boy and the INC became the most favored recipient of CIA funds meant for
the overthrow of Saddam, according to Raman.
-
- In the 1980s, when he was associated with the Petra Bank,
Chalabi, who was allegedly helping the Mossad, the Israeli external intelligence
agency, used to visit Israel secretly.
- During those visits, he became close to the late Albert
Wohlstetter, who is reputed to be "a godfather of the neoconservative
movement in the US," according to Raman.
-
- Chalabi had met Wohlstetter during his student days at
the University of Chicago, Raman wrote, but the friendship became close
only after their meetings in Israel. Through Wohlstetter, Chalabi became
acquainted with Richard Perle, who was Under-Secretary of Defence for international-security
policy under President Reagan, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, both of
whom served under President Ronald Reagan.
-
- Perle, as chief of the Defence Policy Advisory Board,
has been a strong supporter of Chalabi, but the CIA and the State Department
have serious reservations about him.
- Chalabi's criminal past notwithstanding, Chalabi is today
being presented as the possible head of an interim Iraqi authority to provide
an Iraqi face for what is likely to become an extended U.S. military occupation
of Iraq.
-
- "He is tipped to occupy an important post in the
US occupation regime in Baghdad to create a new Iraqi intelligence agency,
which would be loyal to the USA and protect its national interests,"
Raman wrote.
-
- On April 16, two close associates of Chalabi said they
had been elected
- mayor and governor of Baghdad by tribal and religious
chiefs acting with the
- consent of the U.S. government.
-
- INC General Jaudat Obeidi who, prior to his return to
Iraq, had reportedly
- lived in exile in Oregon claimed he had been selected
mayor of Baghdad. And, with a massive media entourage, Mohammed Mohsen
Zubeidi, proclaimed himself governor of a new interim administration for
Baghdad.
-
- A spokesman for the U.S. Marines in Baghdad denied that
the United States
- has recognized anyone to head up a new Iraqi government.
-
- http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=31508
-
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