Chalabi Aides Suspected of Spying for Iran

"That I can't tell you," Myers responded. "What I can tell you is that the organization that he is associated with has provided intelligence to our intelligence unit there in Baghdad that has saved soldiers' lives."

Myers was pressed again on the issue by Rep. Timothy J. Ryan (D-Ohio), who asked, "Have we been duped by a con man?"

"I don't have the information that can allow me to make that judgment," Myers said. "I think that remains to be seen, probably. But I just don't know."

Sometime in the past few weeks, L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq, referred the results of an Iraqi police investigation of the INC to the U.S.-created Central Criminal Court of Iraq. An Iraqi judge outlined charges Thursday that included kidnapping and torture, fraud and "associated matters."

"Ambassador Bremer doesn't intervene in these respective cases, he just handles the procedural matter of referring it," said Daniel Senor, Bremer's spokesman.

A senior Iraqi police officer involved in the case said most of the eight suspects the police sought Thursday were involved in an armed robbery and kidnapping last month that was allegedly carried out by INC members.

The officer, who declined to be named for fear of losing his job, said his office had received complaints for months about INC members impersonating police officers, breaking into homes and carrying out robberies. He said police officers had warned the INC offices several times about the allegations. In the past three weeks, he said, police have arrested four INC officials on robbery charges.

"They knew all about this," the officer said. "It was not the first time."

In April, a respected cardiologist from Baghdad Medical City filed a criminal complaint alleging that he was kidnapped by men he identified as INC members.

The men visited his home one night, accused him of harboring terrorists and asked to search his house, according to the officer who took the complaint. They stole $20,000 in cash and a computer, then they took him away in an SUV, the officer said.

The doctor said he was hooded and driven to a building where he was interrogated, according to the officer. When the men removed the hood, the doctor said, he recognized four of them as INC members. The men were among the eight suspects whom police officers were seeking Thursday.

The officer, who participated in the raid at Chalabi's house, said Chalabi challenged them politely at his door.

"He asked, 'Why are you guys working with the Americans? You are the major crimes unit?' " the officer recalled. "I said, 'We aren't. We're the police. We have a warrant and we are executing it.' "

Brooke, the INC adviser, said the raids were likely related in part to the investigation of Sabah Nouri, a German national whom Chalabi picked to be the Iraqi Finance Ministry's anti-corruption officer. Nouri was arrested in April after auditors discovered a $22 million shortfall in the program overseeing Iraq's transition to a new currency this year. Brooke called him "a low-level" INC official.