WASHINGTON, June 2 (UPI) -- Exiled Iraqi leader Ahmed Chalabi is being investigated by the FBI for allegedly tipping off Iran its spy code had been broken, the New York Times said.
The investigation began about six weeks ago when Chalabi allegedly told the Baghdad station chief of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security the United States was reading the communications traffic of the Iranian spy service.
The inquiry is based on an intercepted Iranian message in which Chalabi said he had been told about the code-breaking by a drunken U.S. official, a senior Bush administration official said.
Chalabi's relationship with Iranian officials was well known, and he maintained an office in Tehran, which one of his aides said was paid for with U.S. government money.
He was head of the Iraqi National Congress and once a favorite of many Bush administration officials, but fell out of favor in recent months as he became a critic of the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority.
The first sign of his problems came on May 20, when Iraqi police under U.S. guidance conducted an early morning raid on his party headquarters and left with computers and boxes of documents.