A Lightning Rod's Striking Return

He elaborates: "It surprised me that they have overcome the hostilities of the past months. I don't want to sound arrogant, but in terms of achieving things, getting things done, it doesn't surprise me. The reporting from Baghdad and my role have been the driving force that made this visit possible." He says of this administration: "They're very pragmatic. And my God, they've known me for a long time. They know I'm a good friend of the U.S." Plus, he says, "I turned out to be a person of independent standing and support and deep roots in my country. The issues that clouded the relationship have been cast aside." Then he adds the most important thing: "I can make a serious contribution to the reduction of [U.S.] forces."

He is asked how he deals with the constant assault on his reputation. "There is a reflective wall that comes instinctively when shots are fired at me. It is tiring, though," he says. "No wall is completely opaque."

But then he brightens when he talks about Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who oversaw the development of the atomic bomb, then was accused of slowing down research on the hydrogen bomb. "They dug up stuff about his marriage," he says. "They discredited him in the worst possible way; they made him look like a fiend. They withdrew his security clearance. He was a genius. Several years later, Kennedy invited him to the White House and Johnson gave him a medal."

During the news conference at the American Enterprise Institute last week, he also mentioned Konrad Adenauer, who never got along with the British and yet ended up being recommended by them to be chancellor of West Germany. "The things people say about me are depressing," he said. "But I know what they are saying is not true."

Chalabi, 61, knows that he is a conundrum to many people. He has been pronounced dead and has risen from the ashes so many times that some call him the Phoenix. What is it about him that makes people crazy? He explains it this way: "I come into a situation that is static, where people have interests and ideas they hold dear. I come with proposals to move the situation without taking into consideration people's prejudices. They get angry at their lost leverage. They go mad. . . . Change produces uncertainty and agitation. And that becomes associated with me."

Chalabi's detractors say that the idea he might ever become prime minister is ludicrous. They say he made a huge mistake in breaking away from the Shia-Sunni alliance and going out on his own. They say that he has no support at all and will be lucky to win even a few delegates.

He grins. He knows that the Prime minister will be chosen in a smoke-filled room. And he is gambling that, once things settle out, he will emerge as the most viable candidate after all. He says that the United States cannot influence the election but that "the Iraqis don't want somebody the U.S. doesn't want. . . . At the same time, they don't want a lackey sitting there taking orders."

Yesterday Chalabi met with Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who wrote the Republican version of the resolution calling for concrete steps toward U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. Chalabi requested the meeting. Warner agreed, having seen the schedule of Chalabi's other meetings. "I was somewhat taken by surprise," Warner said, adding that the road map is clear when somebody sees the secretaries of state and defense, the national security adviser and the vice president. He said Chalabi told him the newly elected Iraqi government would be up and functioning 30 days after the election. "We have to deal with people the Iraqis have put in those positions," Warner said. "How he got there, I don't know. But there he is. . . . I have the impression he will be around."

Tony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has followed the Iraq situation closely.

"Every major revolution produces brilliant opportunists," he says. "Chalabi is very bright and very ambitious. . . . But being a brilliant manipulator is not the way to create a stable or popular system. . . . Polarizing figures polarize people. . . .

"We are unused to dealing with people like this, where the hero turns into the villain and the villain turns into the hero," Cordesman says. "Are we ever going to find the truth? Any journalist who does will not just win the Pulitzer Prize but the Nobel Prize as well."