Overview

Ahmad Abdel Hadi Chalabi was an Iraqi exile politician and convicted fraudster who played a pivotal role in manufacturing the false intelligence that the Bush administration used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As the leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC); a CIA-funded exile opposition group; Chalabi cultivated relationships with American neoconservatives including Paul Wolfowitz; Richard Perle; and Dick Cheney's office; feeding them fabricated claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs. The INC provided the infamous source codenamed "Curveball" (Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi); whose completely fabricated claims about mobile biological weapons labs were cited by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his February 2003 UN Security Council presentation. The U.S. government funneled over $100 million to Chalabi's INC over the course of the 1990s and early 2000s through the Iraq Liberation Act and CIA funding. Before his Iraq War role; Chalabi had been convicted in absentia by a Jordanian military tribunal in 1992 of 31 charges of bank fraud; embezzlement; and currency speculation related to the collapse of Petra Bank; which he had founded. The collapse cost depositors over $300 million. Despite his criminal record; the Pentagon flew him into southern Iraq in April 2003 with 700 of his militia fighters as American forces invaded. He briefly served as Iraq's interim oil minister and acting finance minister; and was elected to the Iraqi parliament. In 2004; Iraqi police raided his Baghdad compound on charges of counterfeiting; and U.S. intelligence agencies severed ties after concluding he had been passing classified American intelligence to Iran. He died of a heart attack in Baghdad on November 3; 2015.

Key Affiliations

Controversies & Concerns

Related Investigations (1)

Known Associates & Connections

Sources & Documentation

3 documented sources from official records, investigations, and reports