Topic: Ahmed Chalabi

Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi (Arabic: أحمد الجلبي‎) (born October 30, 1944) is an Iraqi politician. He was interim oil minister in Iraq in April-May 2005 and December-January 2006 and deputy prime minister from May 2005 until May 2006. Chalabi failed to win a seat in parliament in the December 2005 elections, and when the new Iraqi cabinet was announced in May 2006, he was not awarded a post. Once dubbed the "George Washington of Iraq" he has fallen out of favor and is currently under investigation by several U.S. government sources. He was also the subject of a 2008 biography by investigative journalist Aram Roston, The Man Who Pushed America to War; The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, And Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi.

Chalabi was also part of a three-man executive council for the umbrella Iraqi opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), created in 1992 for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Although the INC received major funding and assistance from the United States, it never had any influence or any following to speak of in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. The INC's influence gradually waned until the December 2005 elections, in which it failed to win a single seat in Parliament.

Chalabi is a controversial figure for many reasons. In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, under his guidance the INC, with the assistance of lobbying powerhouse BKSH & Associates, provided a major portion of the information on which U.S. Intelligence based its condemnation of Saddam Hussein, including reports of weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Most, if not all, of this information has turned out to be fictitious. That, combined with the fact that Chalabi subsequently boasted, in an interview with the British Sunday Telegraph, about the impact that their alleged falsifications had on American policy, led to a falling out between him and the United States. Furthermore, Chalabi has been found guilty of the Petra banking scandal in Jordan (see below).