Free Republic

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 22 - Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite doctor with an Islamist bent, was chosen Tuesday by the victorious Shiite alliance as its candidate to become Iraq's new prime minister. The decision may well open a period of protracted and rancorous negotiations with a coalition of secular leaders intent on sharply curtailing Dr. Jaafari's powers or blocking him and his clerical-backed coalition. Ayad Allawi, the current prime minister, and Barham Salih, a Kurdish politician and deputy prime minister, said in separate interviews on Tuesday that without guarantees renouncing sectarianism and embracing Western democratic ideals they were poised to block...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Interim Iraqi Vice President Ibrahim al-Jaafari was chosen Tuesday to be his Shiite ticket's candidate for prime minister after Ahmad Chalabi dropped his bid, senior alliance officials said. Pressure from within the ranks of the winning United Iraqi Alliance forced the withdrawal of Chalabi, a one-time Pentagon (news - web sites) favorite, said Hussein al-Moussai from the Shiite Political Council, an umbrella group for 38 Shiite parties. "They wanted him to withdraw. They didn't want to push the vote to a secret ballot," al-Moussawi said. The 140 members were to put the decision between Chalabi and al-Jaafari...

BAGHDAD - Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Shiite once known for his ties to Washington, and Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the conservative interim vice president, will face off in a secret ballot Tuesday to determine who will be the Shiite majority's choice for Iraqi prime minister, officials said. The decision to hold a secret ballot came after the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance, which has most of the seats in the 275-member National Assembly, was unable to decide on a nominee -- despite days of negotiations. Chalabi spokesman Haidar al-Moussawi said the most powerful man in predominantly Shiite Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, met...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Shiite once known for his ties to Washington, and Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the conservative interim vice president, will face off in a secret ballot Tuesday to determine who will be the Shiite majority's choice for Iraqi prime minister, officials said. The decision to hold a secret ballot came after the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance, which has most of the seats in the 275-member National Assembly, was unable to decide on a nominee - despite days of negotiations. Chalabi spokesman Haidar al-Moussawi said the most powerful man in predominantly Shiite Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali...

Controversial Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi says he believes he has the votes to become the war-torn country's new prime minister. Mr Chalabi, once supported by the United States only to fall from favour, is part of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) list that won 140 seats of the 275-member national assembly in the January 30 elections. "I believe I have a majority of the [UIA] votes on my side right now" to become the new government's prime minister, Mr Chalabi told United States ABC television. However, the former exile remained cautious, saying the choice of premier "will be decided...

Chalabi set to become Iraq's PM ORLY HALPERN, THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 18, 2005 Ahmed Chalabi is likely to emerge as Iraq's leader, as originally envisioned by the US, Dan Senor, the former spokesman for the US occupation government in Iraq, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. "He has a good chance of getting the job," said Senor. The Iraqi premiership race is now between two seasoned 58-year-old Shi'ite politicians from within the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), a Shi'ite list that won the most votes in the elections. One is Chalabi, the secular leader of the Iraqi National Congress. The...

IN IRAQ they say “Lil quta sabat arwaah” — the cat with seven lives. No matter how many times Ahmad Chalabi is knocked down, his enemies just cannot kill him off. Exiled, disgraced, convicted, branded a collaborator, overlooked in Iyad Allawi’s Government, then rubbished and dropped by his Washington paymasters, the former exile remains widely disliked by many ordinary Iraqis. Yet Mr Chalabi is now poised to gain a top job in the new Shia-led Government, and conceivably the prime ministership. The victorious Shia coalition was deadlocked last night over its choice of prime minister, with its 140 newly elected...

Soon the whole Middle East will see Iraq's national assembly at work. ALL RIGHT. LET US make an analytical bet of high probability and enormous returns: The January 30 elections in Iraq will easily be the most consequential event in modern Arab history since Israel's six-day defeat of Gamal Abdel Nasser's alliance in 1967. Israel's pulverizing defeat of the Arab armies dethroned Nasserism, the romantic pan-Arab dictatorial nationalism that had infected much of the Arab world, particularly its intelligentsia, during the 1950s and '60s. With the collapse of Nasserism, the overtly secular socialist-cum-fascist age in the Middle East closed--except in...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Top Shiite politicians failed to reach a consensus Wednesday on their nominee for prime minister, shifting the two-man race to a secret ballot and exposing divisions in the winning alliance. In a chilling reminder of challenges facing the winner, a videotape showed a sobbing Italian hostage pleading for her life. After hours of closed-door meetings, members of the United Iraqi Alliance agreed to hold a secret ballot to choose between Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Ahmad Chalabi, most likely on Friday, said Ali Hashim al-Youshaa, one of the alliance's leaders. The contrast between the two candidates is stark...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 15 - The race for the top job in Iraq's new government narrowed Tuesday to two leaders in the Shiite alliance, with Ibrahim Jafari of the Dawa Party squaring off against Ahmad Chalabi, who was mounting a last-minute stand against his rival. Dr. Jafari, a physician who spent more than 20 years in exile and is now a deputy president in the interim government, improved his chances on Tuesday when he persuaded another rival, Adil Abdul Mahdi, to withdraw from the race. Dr. Jafari's party, Dawa, and Mr. Mahdi's, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in...

In what is emerging as a spectacular coup for Iran, it is becoming ever more clear that the Islamic Republic not only supported the war in Iraq, but actually used its covert agents to help make the case, often with falsehoods, for the American invasion. In recent days, Iraqi dissident Ahmad Chalabi received support in his bid to become Prime Minister of Iraq from Muktada al-Sadr, a Shia terrorist with links to Iran. The al-Sadr family has been cooperating with Iran and Iran-sponsored Lebanese Hizballah since the overthrow of the Shah. Spokespersons for both al-Sadr and Chalabi have confirmed cooperation...

Last update: February 12, 2005 at 9:10 PM Politician's stock on the rise again Dexter Filkins, New York Times February 13, 2005 CHALABI0213 -snip- One Iraqi who may hold the key to Chalabi's future is Muqtada al-Sadr, the young cleric who led a series of uprisings against the U.S. military last year. According to aides for both men, Al-Sadr has promised to back Chalabi in his bid to become prime minister. Despite his outlaw status -- he is under indictment for murder and has been in hiding -- Al-Sadr fielded several candidates in the election. And his coalition appears likely...

The foreign policy establishment picked a loser; Allawi is a Baathist who lacks appeal or the right vision IT WAS gracious of Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi interim Prime Minister, to thank the British people for their support in the pages of The Times last week. Quite rightly, he acknowledged the hefty price in blood and treasure paid by this country to bring democracy to Mesopotamia. Understandably, Mr Allawi did not say that both he and his own al-Iraqia list have been the greatest beneficiaries of British and American support in recent years. For this former Baathist has long been a...

. Chalabi Is Back An apology is in order. By Barbara Lerner The Iraqi election was a moving display of courage and a great victory, for America, for Iraq, and for our much-maligned president. But when the full results of this historic election are released later this week, it's a safe bet that we will find ourselves having to deal, once again, with another much-maligned man: Ahmed Chalabi. And since our CIA and State Department did the maligning, Chalabi's expected election victory presents what diplo-speakers call "a challenge." Chalabi is a longtime Iraqi leader, a secular Shiite coalition builder, before...

Analysis: Chalabi's magical comeback By Claude Salhani UPI International Editor Published February 1, 2005 WASHINGTON -- If U.S. foreign policy planners were Machiavellian enough, one could be led to believe that they planned the whole affair surrounding former Pentagon golden boy Ahmed Chalabi, the man most likely to become the new prime minister of Iraq. But their track record -- and history -- has proven otherwise. Chalabi, a long-time Iraqi exile who initially based himself in London, was at first supported by Richard Perle, a neo-conservative policy-setter. Chalabi first came into the limelight over his debacle in Jordan in 1992,...

Since midsummer, the Senate Intelligence Committee has been attempting to solve the biggest mystery of the Iraq war: the disparity between the Bush Administration’s prewar assessment of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and what has actually been discovered. The committee is concentrating on the last ten years’ worth of reports by the C.I.A. Preliminary findings, one intelligence official told me, are disquieting. “The intelligence community made all kinds of errors and handled things sloppily,” he said. The problems range from a lack of quality control to different agencies’ reporting contradictory assessments at the same time. One finding, the official went...

The recent threats and accusations that the defense minister in Iraq, Hazem Shaalan, has made against Ahmad Chalabi illustrate ... the urgency of the elections that will elevate a new, democratic government in Baghdad. *snip* Some day an enterprising scholar may write a book exposing the Jordanian shenanigans in the current war. *snip* Only a month ago, Mr. Shaalan and Prime Minister Allawi privately urged the White House to cancel the elections that will likely result in their early retirement from Iraqi politics. When the president demurred, Mr. Shaalan threatened to arrest those who are poised to defeat him with...

NBC news is reporting: But Pentagon officials told NBC News that they were acting at the behest of Iraqi authorities investigating the disappearance of millions of dollars in cash and other assets following the fall of Saddam Hussein. Arrest warrants issued for 16 people An Iraqi judge issued arrest warrants for 16 people affliliated with the INC, and an unknown number were arrested, the officials said. Chalabi, himself a member of the Governing Council, was not arrested, and scheduled a news conference later in the day to discuss the raids. As NBC News reported earlier this week, Chalabi and his...

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Lebanon's finance minister on Sunday downplayed the Iraqi Defense Ministry's transfer of $500 million to a Beirut financial institution, saying he would expect such a transfer to be legal if it was made by the Iraqi government. In southern Iraq, the politician demanding a probe into Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan's decision to make the cash transfer said he would not flee his country. Ahmad Chalabi said he was staying despite Shaalan's threat to arrest him and turn him over to Interpol based on an old Jordanian bank fraud conviction.Finance Minister Elias Saba told the private...

Defense minister threatens to arrest opponent in secret cash purchase. BAGHDAD, IRAQ – Earlier this month, $300 million in dollar bills was taken from Iraq's central bank, put into boxes and put on a charter jet bound for Lebanon, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. The money was to be used to buy tanks and weapons from arms dealers, the officials said – part of an accelerated effort to assemble an armored division for the Iraqi army. But where the money went, to whom and for what, remains a mystery. The deal appears to have been arranged outside the financial...