IN THE NEWS
Saddam Hussein's chief prosecutor, Salem Chalabi (the nephew of the ubiquitous Ahmed Chalabi) is now himself accused of murder. (It's old news by now, but I'm still catching up with the flurry of news from the last week or so.)
You might press yourself up to the window on Iraq that the press provides, but you'll be disappointed to find how blurry the view is. However you look at them, however, the Chalabis have been a grave disappointment for the Bush Administration. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Chalabi already had a somewhat checkered career, full of "did he or didn't he?" incidents of corruption or criminal behavior. The collapse of the Petra Bank, one of Chalabi's pre-war ventures, earned him an in absentia guilty verdict from a Jordanian court. (Chalabi had fled to escape arrest.) As is typical of Chalabi's career, the truth is a bit slippery about the Petra Bank incident: looking at the available evidence, there's still enough wiggle room in which Chalabi can claim innocence.
Since the invasion, Ahmed Chalabi has faced another flurry of accusations, including spying for Iran. (Chalabi had to flee again, this time to Tehran.) His nephew, aside from leading the war crimes trial against Hussein, has been an important player in the granting of contracts, invested in real estate and other ventures, and like his uncle, has ridden the rollercoaster up and down in their relationship with the American government.
Is their any foundation to the accusation that Salem Chalabi did, in fact, play some part in a conspiracy to murder Haitham Fadhil, a Finance Ministry official investigating the Chalabis' real estate ventures? Is this some kind of payback from the Americans and various quarters of the Iraqi provisional government? Are Saddam Hussein's supporters using a spurious charge to throw the war crimes trial off-track? Or, is this incident as simple as someone trying to extort money from the Chalabis?
I can't tell you which scenario is closest to the truth. I can say, however, that the unravelling fortunes of the Chalabis has shown how big a mistake the Bush Administation made by depending on them to, in effect, run the post-invasion Iraq. The Chalabis may be perfectly innocent of intimidation--but was it wise for the Americans to give the Chalabis the files on thousands of Iraqis that Saddam Hussein's secret police had built? The possibilities for extortion is troubling, and in the end, unnecessary. Why should the Chalabis receive this information, and not other Iraqi leaders? (Or perhaps no one at all should get access to it, for the time being, given the potential for abuse?)
Ahmed Chalabi was an adroit politician--in the United States and Great Britain. His fluent English, impeccable manners, and undeniable intelligence made it easy for him to work with the two main opponents of the Baathist regime in the West. Chalabi never proved to be a good politician in Iraq, where different skills and traits were needed. The person who looked impressive when sitting across a conference room table at the Pentagon looked like an impertinent, grasping outsider to Iraqis who suffered under Hussein's tyranny.
If, true or false, the accusation against Salem Chalabi disrupts the war crimes trials, the Bush Administration's final argument for the invasion--freeing the Iraqis, bringing Saddam Hussein and other Baathist leaders to justice--will crumble further. Saddam Hussein, one of the great moral monsters of our time, deserves a day in court. However, if the invasion and occupation don't make that day happen, then what was it all for? And why did the Administration hand far too many important responsibilities to someone named Chalabi?
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