Liberating or Invading Iraq

Profile: Ahmed Chalabi


Chalabi: controversial opposition maverick

Ahmed Chalabi is one of the best known Iraqi opposition figures in the West.

As leader of the one of the foremost opposition movements, the Iraqi National Congress [INC], the 57-year-old former businessman has even been tipped by some analysts as a possible successor to Saddam Hussein.

A Shia Muslim born in 1945 to a wealthy banking family, Mr Chalabi left Iraq in 1956 and has lived mainly in the USA and London ever since, except for a period in the mid-1990's when he tried to organise an uprising in the Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

The venture ended in failure with hundreds of deaths. Soon after, the INC was routed from northern Iraq after Saddam's troops overran its base in Arbil. A number of party officials were executed and others - including Mr Chalabi - fled the country.

Chequered career

A seasoned lobbyist in London and Washington, who studied mathematics at Chicago University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mr Chalabi is often described as a controversial figure, charismatic and determined but crafty and cunning at the same time.



I am not seeking any positions. My job will end with the liberation of Iraq from Saddam's rule

Mr Chalabi has been accused by some opposition figures of using the INC to further his own ambitions.

There are also allegations of financial misdemeanours. In 1992, he was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court to 22 years in prison with hard labour for bank fraud after the 1990 collapse of Petra Bank, which he had founded in 1977.

Although he has always maintained the case was a plot to frame him by Baghdad, the issue was revisited later when the State Department raised questions about the INC's accounting practices.

Cometh the man?

In recent interviews, Mr Chalabi has discounted the possibility he will take a role in any future government.

"Personally, I will not run for any office, and I am not seeking any positions. My job will end with the liberation of Iraq from Saddam's rule," he is quoted as telling the German daily Die Zeit.

He has called for a coalition government to transform the country into a democracy with a federal structure representing all ethnic groups.

He has strong backing among some sectors of Congress and the Pentagon, but is thought to have little grassroots support in Iraq and a number of opposition groups have sought to distance themselves from the INC.

Mr Chalabi subscribed to the "three-city plan", which called for defectors to capture a number of key areas, isolating and surrounding Saddam.



"Not even qualified to run a grocery shop "
Al-Watan - Qatar

But the plan had little support from Arab governments, which said they would not allow Mr Chalabi to run a liberation army from their soil.

In 1998, the then US president, Bill Clinton, approved a plan to spend almost $100m to help the Iraqi opposition - principally the INC - to topple Saddam.

But only a fraction of the money was ever spent, and the INC subsequently suffered leadership infighting.

Mr Chalabi now says the movement is united. But many people are sceptical.

According to the Qatari newspaper Al-Watan, Mr Chalabi and his movement "are failures and are not even qualified to run a grocery shop".

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.