Iraq Opposition Leader Greeted in Southern Town (Chalabi)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The opposition Iraqi National Congress said on Tuesday leaders from across southern Iraq flocked to the town of Nassiriya to greet its leader Ahmad Chalabi, but a CIA report said he and other returning exiles would find little support among Iraqis.

The classified CIA report appeared to be part of the long and bitter struggle within the Bush administration over whether Chalabi and his colleagues can be effective leaders.

Francis Brooke, a close adviser to the opposition leader, said local Iraqi leaders had brought requests for Chalabi to mediate with the U.S. military authorities on matters such as power supplies and people held as prisoners of war.

"We have been receiving delegation upon delegation. We don't have time to meet them all. We are inundated," Brooke told Reuters in a telephone interview from Nassiriya.

Some of them were initially skeptical of U.S. intentions because the Iraqis had seen no clear evidence the Americans were intent on eliminating the Baathist network set up over decades by President Saddam Hussein, he said.

Saddam's government is under siege by U.S.-led forces seeking to topple him and rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, which Iraq denies having.

The U.S. military flew Chalabi to Nassiriya on Sunday, giving the INC a head start over other Arab opposition groups in establishing a political presence under U.S. protection.

It was a defeat for the State Department and the CIA, which do not believe Chalabi is a credible Iraqi leader.

The CIA report said Iraqis would not favor leaders of opposition exile groups for leadership positions in a new government. "The bottom line is the Iraqi public does not view them favorably," a U.S. official familiar with it said.

But analysts say Chalabi's return will put him in a strong position when the United States starts to put together an interim Iraqi authority to run the country.

Brooke said the INC presence was useful but he doubted it would be a critical factor in forming a government.

"It is a chance to demonstrate our popularity on the ground. But the interim Iraqi authority is part of a process which started in London (last year)," he added.

Chalabi left Iraq in 1958, when the monarchy was overthrown, but Brooke said many of his visitors had memories of his family. He is a Shi'ite Muslim, like most southerners.

The Bush administration plans to set up a big opposition meeting inside Iraq, but INC officials said on Tuesday that press reports of a meeting this week were premature.

"It's the Bush administration that's calling the meeting and deciding who's invited and what's the purpose. At the highest levels those questions are undecided," said one official, who asked not to be identified.

After their meeting in Northern Ireland, President Bush (news - web sites) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) added little to their timetable for forming a new temporary government to replace Saddam's.

"As early as possible, we support the formation of an Iraqi Interim Authority, a transitional administration, run by Iraqis, until a permanent government is established by the people of Iraq," the allied leaders said in a joint statement.

Brooke said the main benefit of the INC presence was the role the Iraqi opposition could play helping U.S. and British forces know who among former Iraqi fighters was friendly.

He confirmed a local militia allied to the INC took control of the southeastern town of Amara on Sunday but later withdrew when the CIA threatened it would be bombed.

"There is the same sort of situation in lots of places and we are working frantically to resolve the situation. It's true in and around Nassiriya, neighborhoods of Basra, and it is obviously true in parts of Baghdad," he said.

Iraqi opposition figure Kanan Makiya said in Washington on Tuesday the militia of several thousand armed men, led by a man named Abu Hatem Mohammed Ali, captured the headquarters of the Amara governorate, 230 miles southeast of Baghdad, without support from U.S. forces.

He described Abu Hatem as a well-known guerrilla leader, a longtime contact of the INC and a man known to the Pentagon (news - web sites).

"He was then told by a CIA officer whose name I do not know but who spoke perfect Arabic that he had to vacate that city. ... He was threatened with bombing and strafing of the building, the compound he took over, so he decided it would be better to be wise and he did withdraw in fact," he added.

Here is what Victor David Hanson at NRO writes about Ahmad Chalabi and I kind of like this guy too.

The Iraqi They Hate:

It’s customary to preface antiwar comments with a perfunctory condemnation of Saddam: “Nobody opposes the Saddam Hussein regime more than I do, but ...” The people who can’t seem to work up much of a head of steam against Saddam do, however, get lathered up at the mention of the name of Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress.

The New York Times this morning condemns him in an editorial--while a nearby op-ed by a professor at Georgetown urges the United States to accept as the legitimate government of Iraq whichever colonel ends the war in control of Iraq’s surviving armed forces: “Mr. Chalabi, who has not lived in Iraq for any length of time since 1958, cannot credibly surrender. Unless Saddam Hussein surrenders--and that is highly unlikely--an Iraqi who has been in the country for much of his regime needs to be willing to sue for peace with the United States. ... Who runs postwar Iraq will depend in large part on who surrenders to the United States. The most likely leaders of postwar Iraq are in Iraq today.”

The intensity of the animosity to Mr. Chalabi defies rational understanding. He’s detested by the CIA for being too independent--and by Western enthusiasts for militant Arab nationalism because he is not independent enough. He’s accused of authoritarianism in his management of the INC, and then mistrusted by the State Department because of his undue interest in Iraqi democracy. The Saudis hate him because he’s a Shi’ite by background; the Middle Eastern studies types in this country despise him because he is a tolerant secularist. He’s variously called a tool of the Iranians--of the oil companies--and of course of the Zionist lobby. What Chalabi is in fact is an Iraqi patriot who wants to do his utmost to establish the rule of law, representative institutions, freedom of religion, and a market economy in his country.

Americans of all points of view--from the Defense Department to the faculty lounges of Georgetown University--all agree that the West should not impose a president on Iraq. But surely the West ought also not to ban any democratic person from becoming president? Yet to listen to his critics in the academy and the bureaucracy, a Chalabi government would be much more unacceptable than a neo-Baathist strongman.

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