Iraq’s controversial secular politician Ahmed Chalabi 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 on Tuesday 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, 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, 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.”
Saddam’s fall
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 United States that Saddam Hussein had links to Al Qaeda and possessed weapons of mass destruction in the wake of the September 11 attacks, claims that 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.
“He pursued all roads in order to achieve a goal he believed in, which was overthrowing the oppressive regime of Saddam and build a civil state,” said Mithal Alusi, a secular lawmaker.”He followed any path possible, be it accepted or not.”
Chalabi was later charged with leading the purge of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.