The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi

384 Pages·2009·1.09 MB·English

by  Aram Roston

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THE MAN WHO PUSHED
AMERICA TO WAR
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THE MAN WHO PUSHED
AMERICA TO WAR
The Extraordinary Life,
Adventures, and Obsessions of
AHMAD CHALABI
ARAM ROSTON
NEW YORK
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Copyright © 2008 by Aram Roston
Hardcover edition first published in 2008 by Nation Books,
a Member ofthe Perseus Books Group
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New York,NY 10003
Paperback edition first published in 2009 by Nation Books
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Designed by JeffWilliams
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roston,Aram.
The man who pushed America to war :the extraordinary life,adventures and obsessions of
Ahmad Chalabi / Aram Roston.— 1st ed.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-56858-353-2 (alk.paper)
1.Chalabi,Ahmad,1944- 2.Shiites—Iraq—Biography. 3.Statesmen—Iraq—Biography.
4.Iraq—Politics and government—1991-2003. 5.Iraq War,2003- I.Title.
DS79.66.C45R67 2008
956.7044092—dc22
[B]
2007041983
PB:ISBN 978-1-56858-415-7
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Prologue ix
PART I
1 Golden Age, 1944–1958 3
2 Chalabi in America, 1962–1968 16
3 Beirut, 1971–1977 22
4 Petra Bank, 1977 30
5 Iran and Shiism, 1978–1988 36
6 Business with Saddam, 1980–1989 41
7 The Collapse of the Chalabi Empire, 1989–1990 43
8 The Fall of Ahmad Chalabi, 1989 52
PART II
9 Desert Storm, 1990–1991 67
10 Recruitment, 1991 74
11 Going After Jordan, 1992 80
12 The Founding of the Iraqi National Congress:
Audit by Burglary and Little Coffins, 1991–1992 85
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vi CONTENTS
13 IBC Communications: The Funding, 1992 93
14 Conviction, 1992 95
15 Guerrilla Warrior, 1993–1995 101
16 Victory in Hong Kong, 1995 114
17 Tossed Out in the Cold, 1996 116
PART III
18 Rising Again: Ahmad Chalabi’s Allies, 1997 123
19 Wooing the Neocons, 1997–1998 134
20 Frozen Assets and the Iraq Trust 142
21 Forming INDICT 146
22 Ahmad Chalabi’s Law, 1998 149
23 The Money Returns 158
24 BKSH: Representing Chalabi 168
PART IV
25 The Uses of September 11, 2001 173
26 September 11—A New Direction 181
27 Saddam’s Airline Hijacking School 184
28 The Case of the Underground Wells 193
29 David Rose, 2001–2003 200
30 The Man Who Invented the Mobile Labs, March 2002 206
31 Saddam’s Mistress, September 2002 212
32 The Run-up to War, Summer 2002–Winter 2003 222
33 The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq,
Autumn 2002 229
34 The Free Iraqi Forces and the End of
the Iraq Liberation Act, Summer 2003-Winter 2003 232
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CONTENTS vii
35 The Birth of De-Baathification, Summer 2002 237
36 There Is Oil in Iraq 240
37 Getting Ready, Winter 2003 243
38 Entering Iraq, April 2003 252
39 The Dossiers, 2003 259
40 An Armored Truck and $250 Million, April 2003 267
41 De-Baathification, Part II, 2003–2004 270
42 Chalabi vs. Bremer, May 2003-April 2004 273
43 The UN Gets a Warning, Summer 2003 276
44 The State of the Union, January 2004 282
45 BKSH at War, 2003–2004 287
46 Banking in Iraq, Summer–Fall 2003 298
47 Chalabi Under Seige, May 2003 302
48 The Iran Connection 313
49 Weapons of Mass Destruction 318
50 Almost at the Top 321
51 Inside Deal, 2005 325
52 The Vote, 2005–2006 329
53 The Rescue of the Journalist, 2005 334
Epilogue 337
Acknowledgments 345
Notes 350
Index 361
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Prologue
ON THE AFTERNOON of Thursday,April 28,2005,Ahmad Chalabi smiled
as he stepped from one group of journalists to the next in the Bagh-
dad Convention Center. They eagerly surrounded him with cameras
and microphones. The space was modern and well lit and even air-
conditioned,built under Saddam Hussein when he had ruled Iraq and
now protected by U.S. soldiers who guarded the Green Zone. Silent
bodyguards, like unobtrusive servants, shadowed Chalabi as he
walked with dignity to the next clutch offascinated reporters.
It was an important day for him.Two events touched him and his
family:one political and one financial.The first development was the
reason journalists had gathered to chat with him:the triumphant cre-
ation of a new government for Iraq,which had been scourged by vio-
lence and disorder since the U.S. invasion two years earlier. Chalabi
was confirmed that day as the deputy prime minister and acting oil
minister of a transitional Iraqi government. This would be a tempo-
rary government,by design,but even so,it was the first time in his life
that Chalabi, now sixty, was confirmed as a member of any govern-
ment at all.Exhilarated he may have been,and he held his head high
that day, but he did not even refer to his own central role in all this,
nor did he boast that this whole new Iraq was a product,in part,ofhis
own making. Cajoling and shaming his American friends and ene-
mies,Chalabi had managed to harness the power of the United States
ix