A Lightning Rod's Striking Return

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, describes Chalabi to colleagues and reporters as the most effective of the Iraqi leaders, the go-to guy.

And Chalabi furthered his reputation at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations and at a private lunch at the home of financier Henry Kravis in New York on Saturday. Among the guests were Henry Kissinger, Lesley Stahl and Jim Hoge, editor of Foreign Policy magazine. "He is smart as he can be," Hoge said. "My God, he's somebody who can get something done." Hoge could understand why people might like Chalabi to run things in Iraq, given "our desperation to get somebody to help pull us out of this mess." "He did extremely well," another guest said. "His tenacity and wiliness are extraordinary. If he pulls this off, he will be the Talleyrand of the century."

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The accusations swirl around Chalabi, but they always seem impossible to nail down. The Los Angeles Times reported that he cooked up this trip to the United States, that a U.S. official called it "his idea, not ours." But the spokesman for Treasury Secretary John Snow says, "There was an invitation." It would stand to reason. Chalabi is chairman of Iraq's Energy Committee. "He wanted to talk to me about oil," Chalabi explains. After that meeting was set up, Chalabi says, he received an invitation to meet with national security adviser Stephen Hadley. Then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Chalabi himself initiated meetings with the secretaries of agriculture and commerce.

It is said that when Chalabi learned that Iraq's vice president and former finance minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, was coming, he piggybacked on his trip. Mahdi is a fellow Shiite and a rival for the prime ministry. But a source says that Mahdi was invited after Chalabi's trip had been planned.

As for the FBI investigation into allegations that Chalabi passed government secrets to the Iranians, information officer Bill Carter says the probe "is not specific to Chalabi. It is about the leaking of classified information to a foreign government." Chalabi denies the allegation, calling it "a canard." He did, however, stop off in Tehran before coming here. "We have 1,400 kilometers of border between us, and they share a faith with the majority of Iraqis," he explains. "We want them to support security."

On this trip, Chalabi has been declining to discuss weapons of mass destruction, except to refer to the Robb-Silberman report. That report describes three defectors supplied by the Iraqi National Congress, Chalabi's group, who gave mostly unfounded information about WMD. It also, however, indicates that their involvement in the decision to go to war was minimal.

Chalabi says the administration knows "how little we influenced the decision."

An expert on WMD who might be able to shed some light on Chalabi's involvement is Joe Cirincione, director of the Nonproliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Given Chalabi's twisted path, you'd have to be an idiot to trust this man," he says. "Nothing he has said has turned out to be true." He calls the Robb-Silberman report "a whitewash" and says the information that convinced the administration on WMD came "primarily" from sources in the Iraqi National Congress. What was the information that Chalabi is supposed to have produced that was enough to convince the United States to go to war? "That's the right question," he says. "I don't have the answer to that. I did not do an investigation of that. Let me dig around, call around and see if I can get you an answer." Later he calls back to say that his research came up with the fact that the INC admits to supplying three defectors, just what was in the Robb-Silberman report. "We never had a thorough investigation of Chalabi or the INC role in supplying information to the government. We still don't know the whole story."

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Back in Washington on Sunday, Chalabi has agreed to come for an interview at a reporter's house. Preceded by security he appears alone at the door, without his entourage of family and advisers, stepping inside rather diffidently, if that is possible for Ahmed Chalabi.

Seated in the living room, drinking tea, he has a demeanor that's quite different from the past few days. He seems quieter and more serious. The gleaming eyes, the inscrutable smile, the swagger are all gone. He is asked about his new relationship with the White House but seems surprised to learn that some now approve of him as one of the top candidates. "I don't know about it," he says. "It's just as well," he adds with a shrug. "It could hurt my chances."