Chalabi Savors Status Gained Outfoxing U.S.

“I am waiting to be arrested by the Americans,” declares a mirthful Ahmad Chalabi, having a bit of fun at the expense of his onetime benefactors.

These are heady days indeed for Chalabi, holding court like a 21st century Sidney Greenstreet to a steady stream of dignitaries and journalists, many incredulous at the dazzling revival of his political fortunes.

Improbable as it seems, Chalabi, who faced a criminal prosecution here not long ago and whose office was ransacked in a U.S.-sanctioned raid, may be on the threshold of snaring the reins of Iraqi power.

The 60-year-old politician has emerged as one of two top prime minister candidates of the Shiite Muslim-led political alliance that finished first in a landmark election three weeks ago and will have a slim majority in the transitional national assembly.

Chalabi, an MIT graduate and mathematics wizard, is crunching the numbers, and aides say he has the votes to go all the way within the alliance. A secular Shiite, Chalabi ran as part of the Shiite list but was not affiliated with the two major Shiite parties.

Even if his operatic bid for the prime minister’s post falls short, Chalabi has seemingly cemented his position as a major powerbroker in the new Iraq, probably with his choice of top jobs -- and opportunities to inflict payback on his many adversaries. From his fortified Baghdad compound, he speaks expansively of a bright future.

“This coming back to Iraq has been the focus of my entire career,” says Chalabi, who hadn’t set foot in Baghdad in more than four decades until he returned in 2003 as American-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein.

To say that this lifelong devotee of Iraqi exile politics and intrigue savors the moment is to engage in immense understatement.

“I am going home,” Chalabi recalls telling a U.S. commander when asked why he was heading to Baghdad with his entourage, after being airlifted in with U.S. forces.

He is a scion of the onetime Iraqi elite but left the country as a teenager with his family in 1958, after the monarchy was overthrown. He spent the following decades abroad, at one point being convicted of bank fraud in Jordan.

As Hussein’s three-decade-plus regime crumbled, Chalabi, with strong backing from the Pentagon and neoconservatives within the Bush administration, seemed a good bet to become Iraq’s next leader -- the exile returned triumphant. U.S. authorities named Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress party, to the Iraqi Governing Council.

But things went south for him swiftly. Many Iraqis distrusted this larger-than-life figure, U.S. officials cooled to his maneuvering and ultimately there were inconvenient accusations, including the alleged passing of secret information to Iran. Chalabi denied any wrongdoing.

The unpleasantness culminated in a violent raid on his home and the party’s headquarters in May. Chalabi decamped, his career in Iraq seemingly in tatters. There was no MacArthur-like “I shall return” telecast live in Baghdad.

His longtime rival exile, Iyad Allawi, a distant relative, emerged as the interim prime minister and U.S. favorite. It was a bleak panorama, even for someone with a sophisticated mathematical grasp of how odds can turn.

Chalabi did return, however, and did what he does best -- assiduously cultivating contacts within the Shiite community. He made repeated pilgrimages to the holy city of Najaf and the back alley housing the offices of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the powerful Shiite leader who never meets with U.S. representatives.

Today, like a forgiving father, Chalabi speaks with forbearance of the U.S. authorities who ditched him.

“I am a very good friend of America,” Chalabi intones, pronouncing every syllable in a deep baritone and occasionally trilling his Rs.

Listening to every word are trusted aides and his daughter, Tamara, a savvy recent Harvard grad who earned her doctorate studying the Shiite community in Lebanon. She is said to have helped her father with independent-minded women on the Shiite slate, which, like all political groupings in the election, was required to have women fill at least one-third of candidate slots.

“I did not change,” Chalabi continues, referring to his row with Washington. “They changed.”

Paradoxically, his falling out with Washington may have bought Chalabi the street credibility to be a viable prime minister candidate in a nation where the U.S. presence is extremely unpopular.

“It clarified the picture to a great many people here,” Chalabi says of the break. “There was a misperception that [U.S. officials] were protecting me in some sense.”

As prime minister, Chalabi says, he would not seek a timetable for U.S. withdrawal. He acknowledges the need for multinational troops until Iraqi forces are able to put down the insurgency.

But Chalabi warns that he would put restraints on U.S. operations and seek a status-of-forces agreement that would put Iraqi authorities firmly in control. A Chalabi-led government would call for the more than 8,000 people detained by the U.S. to be charged or released.

Other prospective changes: He’d like for Iraqis to have complete access to the U.S.-run Green Zone in central Baghdad and Hussein’s Republican Palace, now the site of the U.S. Embassy annex. He’s tired of the 20,000 private security guards, many protecting U.S. contractors or officials, who tool around Baghdad with automatic weapons poking out of their SUV windows.

“I am grateful to the American men and women of the armed forces, who have helped us in our liberation from Saddam,” Chalabi declares, voicing views seldom heard from Iraqi politicians who are hypersensitive about being seen as U.S. stooges. “And I am grateful to President Bush for having the courage to follow through on his promise to bring democracy to Iraq.”

That said, he adds, times have changed. And Ahmad Chalabi is putting his enemies and detractors on notice: He will be a player in the new Iraq.