IRAQ: Dr Chalabi's chief backers turned against him when no banned weaponry was found in Iraq, writes Michael Jansen
The warrants issued by a Baghdad judge on Sunday for two key post-war Iraqi politicians could precipitate the fall of the 'House of Chalabi'. Dr Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress and former member of the disbanded Governing Council, is accused of money-laundering and counterfeiting.
His nephew, Mr Salem Chalabi, who drafted the country's interim constitution and set up the tribunal to try members of the ousted regime, is charged with the murder of a senior official at the finance ministry who was investigating the Chalabi family's property holdings in the capital.
The men argue the accusations are false and politically motivated. They could be correct because both have made serious enemies since returning to Iraq on the back of US tanks in April 2003.
Dr Ahmad Chalabi, the Pentagon's choice to succeed Saddam Hussein, could not be imposed because he had no constituency in Iraq. He served as president for one month only, in rotation with other members of the now dissolved council. He was not given a portfolio in the interim government headed by his chief rival, Dr Ayad Allawi.
Dr Chalabi's chief backers turned against him when no banned weaponry was found in Iraq, depriving the Bush administration of its casus belli and undermining its credibility. In May his house was raided, the $330,000 monthly US stipend to his party was cut, and he was accused of passing intelligence to Iran.
He alienated Iraqis by seizing prestigious properties in the capital, including the Hunting Club, an adjacent art gallery and houses of senior members of the former regime. His militiamen commandeered private vehicles and toured the streets with their arms. Until recently, Iraqis consulted by The Irish Times said he remained a "dangerous man".
A year ago Mr Salem Chalabi set up the Iraqi International Law Group in association with an Israeli law firm, Zell, Goldberg and Company, which helped US firms secure reconstruction contracts in Iraq.
This generated a great deal of anger in Baghdad, where Israel is considered an enemy and the main beneficiary of the US war on Iraq. Israeli agents are even alleged to be behind some of the destabilising bomb attacks which have racked the country over the past 12 months.
The Chalabis, secular Shias educated in the US and Britain and long resident abroad, are also castigated for insisting on the extirpation from the administration of members of the banned Ba'ath party and on the demobilision of the army, policies which transformed Iraq from a troubled but functioning country into a failed state.
When the US turned against him, Mr Ahmad Chalabi sought to hitch himself to the rising star of the 'House of Sadr', headed by Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric who has mounted two bloody campaigns against US forces in the south and the Shia slum in western Baghdad. The son of the revered Ayatollah Muhammad Sadek Sadr, slain by the Ba'athist regime in 1999, and nephew of Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr Sadr, a scholar murdered in 1980, Muqtada al-Sadr is a middle-ranking cleric trained in the holy city of Najaf whose foreign travel is confined to Iran. Mr al-Sadr seeks to transform Iraq into an Islamic state. Mr Chalabi prefers a Western-style government.
The contrast between the suit-and-tie Chalabis and Mr al-Sadr's loose black turban and flowing clerical kaftan could not be more striking. He represents poor Shias dwelling in urban bidonvilles, while the Chalabis are wealthy aristocrats with a paid following. Mr al-Sadr is an "insider," a man who stayed at home during Ba'athist rule while the Chalabis are "outsiders," returned exiles, regarded as carpetbaggers by many Iraqis.
Mr al-Sadr is seen as a nationalist, the Chalabis as US agents. Mr al-Sadr has challenged the US, Mr Chalabi was the man credited with persuading the Bush administration to wage war on Iraq and occupy the country.
But since US promises of liberation, democracy and prosperity have come to nothing, the 'House of Chalabi' has been rejected and the 'House of Sadr' is now vying for power in the battle with the interim government led by Mr Allawi, another secular Shia outsider supported by Washington.