Ahmed Chalabi, who spurred Iraq invasion, dies
BAGHDAD: Ahmed Chalabi, the smooth-talking Iraqi politician who pushed Washington to invade Iraq in 2003 with discredited information on Saddam Hussein’s military capabilities, died yesterday of an apparent heart attack.
Haitham al-Jabouri, secretary of parliament’s financial panel that Chalabi had chaired, said attendants had found him dead in his bed in his Baghdad home. A news flash on Iraqi state television said the cause was a heart attack.
A secular Shi’ite, Chalabi rose to prominence as leader of the then-exiled Iraqi National Congress, which played a major role in encouraging the US administration of former President George W Bush to invade Iraq and oust Saddam.
“There are some people who will remember him in a good way, and there are others, to be honest, who do not like and did not want his politics,” said former prime minister Ayad Allawi. “But, regardless, Iraq lost a man who had an important contribution, important commitments towards the nation and he tried to offer what he could to this country.”
Chalabi, born in 1944 into a wealthy Baghdad family, returned to Iraq shortly after Saddam’s fall, the culmination of years of work abroad pressing and charming Washington to oust the man who ruled Iraq with an iron fist for decades.
He ultimately succeeded by persuading the US that Saddam Hussein had links to alQaeda and possessed weapons of mass destruction in the wake of the September 11 attacks, claims which later proved unfounded.
After the US-led invasion of Iraq, he could often be seen in Baghdad flanked by dozens of bodyguards as he forged ties with political figures and powerful clerics. Once viewed in Washington as its preferred future Iraqi leader, he lost favour among his American benefactors amid accusations that he had passed information to arch-foe Iran.
At one point, Chalabi’s name was floated as a candidate for prime minister, but he never managed to rise to the top of Iraq’s sectarian-driven politics. In the last few months, Chalabi had been working on an investigation into alleged irregularities in banking transactions in Iraq, a close associate said. – Reuters