Iraqi Police Raid Chalabi’s Home, Offices

Iraqi police backed by U.S. troops stormed the home and offices of onetime U.S. ally Ahmad Chalabi, rousting him from sleep, tearing his portrait from the wall and carting away computers, documents, weapons and other potential evidence in a criminal investigation.

U.S. officials said Thursday that Chalabi, a member of the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council, was not a target of the probe but that they were searching for as many as 15 people linked to his U.S.-funded party, the Iraqi National Congress. The individuals are suspected of fraud, torture, kidnapping and misuse of government property, officials said.

But U.S. officials have been growing increasingly concerned about Chalabi’s apparently cozy relationship with Iran. They suspect that Chalabi or his aides may have passed along to Iran information on U.S. capabilities for decoding and translating protected communications -- a potentially serious breach -- according to a former U.S. official.

The raids in the upscale Mansour neighborhood represented a new low in the deteriorating relationship between the U.S. and Chalabi, who had been the darling of the Pentagon. Friction between Chalabi and U.S. officials, particularly some in the State Department and CIA, has been building for months -- even while top Pentagon officials continued to support him.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told a Senate committee this week that the Pentagon would stop paying a $340,000 monthly stipend to the INC. Chalabi’s party was paid for intelligence that the Bush administration used in making its case for invading Iraq. The Pentagon funding continued to flow even after U.S. intelligence agencies found that some prewar information supplied by the INC about then-President Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs was misleading, inflated or even fabricated.

As head of the INC, Chalabi built support during the 1990s among influential members of Congress and leading so-called neoconservatives in the administration, such as Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, a former advisor to the Defense Department. When President Bush delivered his State of the Union speech in January, Chalabi sat with the first lady.

On Thursday, Chalabi emerged from his office visibly angry. He held a portrait of his grandfather in a shattered frame. “I am America’s best friend in Iraq,” he said.

“If the CPA finds it necessary to conduct an armed attack against my home, you can see the state of my relationship with the CPA,” he said, referring to the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. “

U.S. officials said insisted Thursday that Iraqi police -- not the U.S. -- chose to target Chalabi’s associates less than six weeks before the U.S. hand-over of power to an interim Iraqi government.

Chalabi, who has denied passing secrets to Iran, said the raids were part of a political campaign by the U.S. and his Iraqi rivals to discredit him and silence his recent criticisms of the American-led occupation.

He recently angered U.S. officials by launching his own investigation of allegations of corruption in the United Nations’ “oil for food” program. He has refused to turn over relevant government documents to other agencies investigating the allegations -- including a U.N. team headed by Paul A. Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman. He also rattled officials by calling for national elections this summer when the U.S. was lobbying for balloting next year.

Senior coalition officials said that the top U.S. civilian administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, approved the initial investigation of Chalabi’s associates but that he had not been involved in the details and was not informed of the raids until after they occurred.

An Iraqi judge, Hussein Almazini, who has been heading the investigation, declined to discuss specifics of the case Thursday, other than to say the inquiry was led by Iraqis.

Privately, U.S. officials criticize Chalabi for failing to connect with ordinary Iraqis, and note that he continues to be dogged by accusations of corruption and misconduct. In 1992, a Jordanian court convicted him in absentia of embezzling tens of millions of dollars from Petra Bank, the country’s largest, which he founded and ran for 12 years before its collapse. Chalabi disputes the charges.

More recently, an aide to Chalabi has been linked to fraudulent deals involving the conversion of old Iraqi currency, Iraqi officials said. Others have been accused of improperly selling or using government property.

One of the INC members being sought by police is Arras Habib, Chalabi’s intelligence chief. Chalabi said Iraqi police and U.S. authorities here wanted Habib for questioning because he had embarrassed the CIA by being more successful at gathering intelligence about terrorists.

But Habib is suspected of being one of those who passed sensitive information about U.S. security operations to Iranians.

Coalition spokesman Dan Senor declined to comment on the state of the relationship between the U.S. and Chalabi, or whether officials believed Chalabi should be part of Iraq’s new government.

“These are decisions that the Iraqis are going to make about who they want in power, about who they want running their country,” Senor said. “The Coalition Provisional Authority is disappearing in less than six weeks. Iraqis will be choosing their leaders.”

The U.S. and U.N. are picking members of Iraq’s interim government. Chalabi is not expected to be among them.

Witnesses said U.S. troops began surrounding his neighborhood about 7 a.m., sealing off roads with military vehicles.

Bodyguards at the INC offices said Iraqi police raided the mansion that serves as the organization’s office just before 10 a.m., kicking in the front door and herding dozens of guards into the garden at gunpoint. Police seized computers, notebooks, photocopying machines, cameras, various electronics and an automatic rifle.

Officers also took money from guards and raided the kitchen, snacking on fruits and guzzling sodas, according to Chalabi’s guards.

At one point, an Iraqi officer snatched a portrait photograph of Chalabi and smashed the glass against a table.

“Chalabi’s over now,” the officer reportedly said, according to a Chalabi guard.

Chalabi said he was asleep when police entered his room holding pistols. He said guards at his home began fighting with the Iraqi police. He claimed that the confrontation would have ended in a gunfight had he not restrained his men. The INC has its own small militia, which was armed and supervised by U.S. troops during the war last year.

The guards said that the search was conducted by Iraqi police but was directed by Americans in civilian clothes who wore protective vests and side arms. INC officials said they believed the Americans were from the CIA or FBI.

U.S. soldiers also stood outside the offices.

A second INC office building -- formerly used by Hussein’s secret service, the Mukhabarat -- was also raided and emptied of 50 computers and other items, guards said.

Three Shiite Muslim members of the Governing Council expressed support for Chalabi, a Shiite, and called upon the coalition to apologize.

U.S. officials were eager to distance themselves from the raids.

“We really don’t have anything to do with the investigation or the arrests,” Senor said.

With anti-Americanism on the rise in Iraq, some worry that Chalabi might be able to use the raids to his advantage. The last time U.S. officials attempted to crack down on a controversial Iraqi leader -- when the coalition shut down a newspaper owned by firebrand cleric Muqtada Sadr -- they ended up increasing his popularity, rather than diminishing it.

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Times staff writers Richard B. Schmitt and Mary Curtius in Washington contributed to this report.