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Institutional
Affiliations
Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA): Frequent guest
and speaker at JINSA meetings and conferences (2)
American
University of Beirut: Former Mathematics Professor (2)
Corporate
Connections/Business Interests
Petra Bank
(Jordan): Founder, 1977, and Chairman (1), (2)
Education
Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT): Ph.D.
in Mathematics (2), (4)
University of Chicago (2), (4) |
Highlights
& Quotes
Ahmed
Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), leading member
of the Iraqi Governing Council, and the poster boy of neoconservative
policy wonks, is a Shiite Muslim who was born to a wealthy banking
family in Iraq. At the age of 12, his family left Iraq. Although
Chalabi has spent most of his life in the West, he has remained
closely involved in Middle East affairs. But his activities, as
well as his close association with the Bush administration, have
made him an extremely unpopular figure in the region.
In
the mid-1990s, his INC tried to organize an uprising in Kurdish
areas of Iraq. When the effort failed and hundreds of supporters
were killed, Chalabi and many of his INC cohorts fled the country.
Earlier, in 1992, after his Petra Bank folded, Chalabi was sentenced
in absentia by a Jordanian court for bank fraud. Chalabi has repeatedly
insisted that he is innocent and says the bank’s failure was
orchestrated by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. (1), (2),
(4)
According
to a Washington Post article, the Pentagon’s faith in Chalabi
as a potential Iraqi leader, despite his 45-year absence from the
country, caused war planners to ignore State Department warnings
about the lack of support for Chalabi in the country and overlook
the emergence of a radical, fundamentalist Shiite political base
in the country. Said one unnamed official: “They really did
believe he is a Shiite leader. ... They thought, ‘We’re
set, we’ve got a Shiite -- check the box here.’”
Walter P. Lang, a former Defense Intelligence Agency specialist
in Middle East affairs, told the newspaper, “We’re flying
blind on this. It’s a classic case of politics and intelligence.
In this case, the political community have (sic) absolutely whipped
the intel community, or denigrated it so much.” (3)
Regarding
Chalabi’s supporters in Washington, journalist Robert Dreyfus
wrote: “Team Chalabi is led by Deputy Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, the neoconservative strategist
who heads the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. Chalabi's partisans
run the gamut from far right to extremely far right, with key supporters
in most of the Pentagon's Middle-East policy offices -- such as
Peter Rodman, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and Michael Rubin. Also
included are key staffers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office,
not to mention Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former CIA
Director Jim Woolsey. The Washington partisans who want to install
Chalabi in Arab Iraq are also those associated with the staunchest
backers of Israel, particularly those aligned with the hard-right
faction of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu. Chalabi's cheerleaders include the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the Jewish Institute
for National Security Affairs (JINSA).” (2)
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