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Monday, 7 April, 2003, 15:54 GMT
16:54 UK
As leader of one of the foremost opposition movements, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the former businessman has been tipped by some analysts as a possible successor to Saddam Hussein. He was airlifted into the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriya by the Americans just a few days before US troops moved into Baghdad, reinforcing suspicions that the US regards him as one of its main allies within the Iraqi opposition. A Shia Muslim born in 1945 in Baghdad to a wealthy banking family, Mr Chalabi left Iraq in 1956 and has lived mainly in the US and London ever since, except for a period in the mid-1990s when he tried to organise an uprising in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. The venture ended in failure with hundreds of deaths. Soon after, the INC was routed from northern Iraq after Saddam Hussein's troops overran its base in Irbil. A number of party officials were executed and others - including Mr Chalabi - fled the country.
Friday, 11 April, 2003, 14:17 GMT
15:17 UK
With the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the hunt for an Iraqi national capable of leading the country into the post-Saddam era has shifted up a gear.This places the spotlight very much on men like Ahmed Chalabi, the controversial head of the London-based Iraqi National Congress (INC). The airlifting of Mr Chalabi into the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriya by the Americans, just a few days before US troops moved into Baghdad, reinforced suspicions that the US regards him as one of its main allies within the Iraqi opposition.
Many expect the leader of the Iraqi National
Congress to take a senior role in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq even
though he has said he is not seeking office. But will his financial
reputation get in the way?
Meet Ahmed Chalabi. A charming man, by all accounts - personable, friendly, very outgoing when you meet him in person, and the owner of a successful software company. An expatriate Shia Iraqi whose arrival last week in the town of Nasiriyah, with some 700 friends, was only his second return visit to his homeland in almost half a century. A veteran of a decade-long push to oust Saddam Hussein, and the founder of the best-known - famous to some, notorious to others - opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress. The man seemingly anointed by the hawks in the Pentagon to help shape a post-Saddam Iraq, despite being deeply distrusted by much of the rest of Washington DC's foreign policy establishment. Oh, yes. And a former financier who has been linked to two bank failures in the Middle East, and who still faces a 22-year jail sentence with hard labour in Iraq's neighbour, Jordan, should he ever return there. Both cases, apparently, are mired in politics as well as finance.
By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad
18 April 2003
His return was not quite the triumphant arrival one would have imagined for the man who would be king, or at least president, of the new Iraq. There was no walkabout to meet the people, not even a press conference. Instead, Ahmed Chalabi spent most his first day in Baghdad, after 44 years in exile, hidden behind the iron gates of a private club. The leader of the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC) is heavily protected by American troops who have accompanied him since he arrived on an American military flight to the southern town of Nasiriyah. Their Humvees took up positions inside the Hunting Club in Mansur, where Mr Chalabi was holding meetings with American officials. The club, whose exclusive membership included the Baath party hierarchy and senior military officers, was a particular favourite of Saddam Hussein's son, Uday. Mr Chalabi is widely perceived as being sponsored by Washington, but while he has the backing of the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and the Pentagon, he is viewed with some scepticism and antipathy by the State Department and the CIA.
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