Chalabi Scrambles for Position as the Political Land Rush Begins

In the jockeying for control of postwar Iraq, few men have the name recognition -- in Washington at least -- of Ahmad Chalabi, the businessman whose return to his homeland after nearly half a century in exile was made possible by a Pentagon aircraft.

As new political parties spring up across the nation, Chalabi’s Iraqi Democratic Conference is attempting to stay ahead of the crowd by signing up scores of recruits every day.

Ghazi Kubah and his two brothers, Samir and Ali, are among the newest members.

Ghazi has a pistol on his hip and a small satellite telephone in his hand, courtesy of the party. He says he is helping his country and Chalabi by using informants to search for the dozens of “most wanted” Iraqis sought by U.S. authorities. And he is extolling the party’s virtues to anyone who will listen -- though he’s somewhat lacking in details.

“Loyalty to Chalabi will be wider and wider,” Ghazi, 33, said Wednesday at his two-story family home, where a rumbling generator powered lights and the razor of a visiting barber, who was offering long-overdue haircuts and beard trims.

Brother Ali, 43, was a little skeptical. Reluctant to speak too critically while Ghazi was present, he eventually allowed that the Iraqi people are fickle, and times remain too turbulent to put all of one’s faith in one man.

“We don’t know [Chalabi] yet, but he’s the candidate for the moment,” Ali said. “Maybe later someone else will be more well-known and we will change our mind.”

Ali said he fears that returning exiles, armed with U.S. dollars, will take the best jobs and inflate prices, threatening the livelihood of Iraqis who remained behind. What’s more, he said, the returnees will never understand the depth of suffering of those who stayed.

Ali’s outspoken wife, Atiaf, said she would prefer reinstatement of the monarchy that was overthrown in the 1950s. Short of that, she favors Chalabi, even over the Shiite Muslim parties now springing up -- and the Kubahs are Shiites.

The Islamic parties, she said, “didn’t make the change. It was Chalabi who started the revolution -- with the Americans.”

Chalabi’s checkered reputation -- he was convicted of bank fraud in Jordan in the 1980s, charges he claims were politically motivated -- did not seem to bother the Kubahs. Though some U.S. officials have expressed hope that Chalabi can emerge as a leading figure in a new Iraqi government, he now must fight for recognition and acceptance in the country he fled in 1958.

The eldest Kubah brother, Samir, said Chalabi’s personal wealth is an advantage because he won’t be obsessed with stealing money from the Iraqi people.

The Kubahs owned and operated a plastics factory until Saddam Hussein’s regime drove them to financial ruin, the brothers said.

Samir signed up at the Chalabi party branch office in the upscale Mansour neighborhood. Party activists say they have about 20 offices around Baghdad, plus others in major cities, but they won’t discuss membership figures. The party is trying to position itself as an umbrella organization of sorts, but its policies and programs remain vague.

On Wednesday, about 100 men were lined up outside the Mansour branch, kept at a distance by three Kalashnikov- toting guards who decided who entered the gated building.

Seeking affiliation with the party involves filling out applications with questions not unlike those the Hussein regime asked. Did you work against the previous regime? Did you fight on behalf of pro-Hussein militias such as the Fedayeen Saddam? What party do you and your relatives belong to?

“We need a job -- anything,” said one of those outside, Khalid Ismail, a former technician at the Industry Ministry, which was gutted by looters and fire.

Inside the party office, supporters applied fresh coats of paint to the walls and hammered broken door frames. The house had belonged to Chalabi’s wife, party activists said, and later was used as a headquarters for Hussein’s Baath Party.

Mohammed Ali, who was running the Mansour office, said men from “the simplest worker to the PhDs” are applying to join. They are dispatched to perform various jobs aimed at building the party’s infrastructure and its following. Often, they are given money.

“We are the biggest party, a bundle of parties actually, but ready to work with all of the others as long as they serve Iraq,” Ali said in the spartan office, where a picture of Chalabi was taped to the wall and an AK-47 leaned in the corner.

Back at the Kubahs’ house, where all three brothers live with their families, Ali Kubah still had his doubts.

As with many things in this part of the world, interest in Chalabi for the Kubahs is part personality, part family history. In Iraq’s pre-Hussein heyday, the Kubahs and the Chalabis shared the same upper-crust social circles. The families intermarried.

Chalabi’s family background is a big plus, Ali said, but he is likely to promote his own inner circle before really caring for the average Iraqi. At this stage, it seems clear that any support for Chalabi is skin deep, based more on the hopes for a job or perks than on ideology or concrete plans.

“We have a saying in Iraq: You beat a drum, and the people will dance,” Ali said. “You come and say, ‘I’m the president,’ and people will clap. When Saddam was president, they clapped. And the day he collapsed, the same people were the ones pulling down the statue. They change their tune.”