Chalabi Ready For U.S. Visit, Another Shot At Limelight

Last month he helped negotiate the release of kidnapped Irish journalist Rory Carroll, according to Carroll and Chalabi aides. Carroll was freed into Chalabi's custody after a night in captivity.

But the revival of Chalabi's political fortunes suffered a setback last week when he quit the Shiite Muslim political coalition he helped found, stunning many political observers here. In negotiations over whether he would remain with the coalition -- an alliance of Shiite groups that won the most votes in January's elections -- Chalabi insisted on an assurance that party leaders, such as Abdul Aziz Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, would back his bid to become prime minister when a new government is formed next year.

At a dinner meeting at Hakim's Baghdad home on the evening before the deadline for coalition lists to be submitted, Hakim balked at the demand, two Chalabi aides said. So Chalabi, a secular Shiite, walked away from the coalition, opting instead to lead a smaller corps of lesser-known candidates unveiled this week.

"We have been quite open about his desire to be prime minister. For some parties that may have been an insoluble demand," said Francis Brooke, a senior Chalabi aide who also was targeted in the espionage investigation last year. "We think this is our time."

Yet U.S. officials note that all reliable opinion polls show Chalabi with an almost negligible political base. Others questioned whether his leaving the alliance was a miscalculation.

"He is a brilliant tactician but he does not have a lot of popular support. He needed the alliance more than they needed him," said Wamidh Nadhmi, a political science professor at Baghdad University. "I think he defeated his chances to become prime minister."

His support is strongest in the Baghdad neighborhood of Khadimyia, where his family has a long-standing business presence and has been heavily involved in philanthropy. Several residents said the various allegations against him were baseless.

"All what was said about him is lies. He doesn't need to steal from anyone. He has enough to give, not to steal," said Mehdi Naji Aboud, a 52-year old high school principal. "He is the man for the coming period. He struggled against the dictatorship for decades and now he came back to help the oppressed. He fought for their sake."

But many Iraqis are frustrated with the current government, controlled by the Shiite parties Chalabi left, for failing to deliver such basic services as electricity and to quell a violent insurgency. And the highly influential clerical council that supported the Shiite alliance in January's elections has said it will stay on the sideline this time. Some observers say that opens the door to secular candidates such as Chalabi and former interim prime minister Ayad Allawi, who also has close ties to the U.S. government and is considered strong on security issues by many Iraqis.

"Chalabi is one among three who at this point are front-runners to assume higher position after the Dec. 15 elections," said a second senior State Department official, who also mentioned Allawi and the Supreme Council's Adel Abdel-Mehdi, who will also visit the United States this month. "No one has forgotten the past. But this is a very important election, and [Chalabi] is a good and resourceful politician."

Brooke contends that Iraq's current prime minister, Ibrahim Jafari, has faltered over the past year and that Allawi, his predecessor, was too tainted by charges of corruption. Jafari's government has issued arrest warrants for 27 senior aides from Allawi's administration over alleged embezzlement of more than $1 billion from the Defense Ministry. Allawi's office declined interview requests for this story.

Chalabi, in 1992, was convicted in absentia by a Jordanian court of bank fraud and embezzling millions of dollars and was sentenced to 22 years of hard labor. Chalabi has maintained that he was set up by Jordanian regulators at the behest of Hussein's government.