Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Chalabi Arrest Warrants Three Judge

Juan Cole 08/09/2004

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

Chalabi Arrest Warrants

A three-judge panel on Sunday issued a warrant for the arrests of Ahmad Chalabi and his nephew Salem Chalabi. Ahmad Chalabi was in Iran as part of an Iraqi trade mission at the time of the announcement, and says he will come back to contest the charges. The timing is suspicious, however, and some might think the Allawi government hoped Chalabi would remain in Iran, in exile. He was charged with counterfeiting old Iraqi dinars (why not counterfeit new dinars if you were going to counterfeit?) and money-laundering. His nephew Salem, who had headed the tribunal in charge of trying Saddam Hussein, has been charged with murder.

Ahmad Chalabi is accused of being a corrupt con man whose lies helped embroil the US in the Iraq quagmire. But Ahmad Chalabi is also a powerful rival to his distant cousin, Iyad Allawi. Allawi favors rehabilitating the ex-Baathists. Chalabi favors purging them. Allawi deeply distrusts Iran. Chalabi has a strong Iranian connection. Allawi wants to crack down on the militias of the religious Shiite parties. Chalabi has increasingly allied himself with the religious Shiite leadership, despite being a secularist himself.

Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord is not much of a political party, and mainly groups ex-Baath officers who broke with Saddam and decided to try to overthrow him. Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress groups several important expatriate Iraqi political factions. Although Chalabi himself was never popular on the Iraqi street, he has proven himself as a skilfull political broker and might well have found a way to get into parliament and become influential in the forthcoming elections. He manages to have good relations with the Kurds, Sistani, Muqtada al-Sadr, and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim all at once. On the other hand, the Sunni Arabs blame him for his attempts to exclude ex-Baathists from civil and political society.

The arrest warrants may be justified. But their timing, just as Allawi’s government, in alliance with the Americans, was attempting to crush the Sadr movement, another rival to Allawi, is unfortunate.

As if all that were not bad enough, the Allawi government chose Sunday to announce that it was re-instituting the death penalty. This move drew condemnations from international human rights organizations. It was not good news for Salem Chalabi.

A few days ago, The Scotsman laid out the case against Salem Chalabi:


” Mr Chalabi, whose uncle is former Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi, is accused of attempting to intimidate Haitham Fadhil, a finance ministry official who was investigating the Chalabi family’s real estate holdings when he was killed in May. “

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Trump never saw a Wind Farm in China, but Beijing has half of all Installed Wind Capacity and will Eat America's Lunch in this Industry
  • Trumpism holds all Men are Created Unequal and most should be Denied Life, Liberty or the Pursuit of Happiness
  • Why China's Inaction on Palestine and Iran Weakens its Global Standing
  • The Trump Team's Purge of Pentagon Photos Raises Sinister Echoes from the Past
  • Israel continues to Starve, Target Gaza Civilians in ongoing Genocide

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved