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Posted on 05/23/2004 9:36:40 PM PDT by DoctorZIn
Iran dismisses Chalabi spy charges
TEHRAN: US allegations that Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi spied for Iran are unfounded and designed to divert attention from Washington’s problems in Iraq, the Iranian foreign ministry said on Sunday.
“These espionage allegations are obviously lacking any foundations,” ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
“The Americans are trying to cover up their massive problems, owing to their political unilateralism and their refusal to listen to the opinions of others.”
The United States is investigating accusations that Iraqi Governing Council member and former Pentagon favourite Chalabi passed sensitive information to Iran, a US official said on Friday.
“There is evidence Ahmed Chalabi passed sensitive information to Iran and an investigation is ongoing,” a US official said.
A furious Chalabi, who was once considered a Washington favourite to become a post-war leader of Iraq, said he had broken ties with the US-led coalition authorities and has denied the spying allegations as “bilge”.
“Iran does not need us to get information on the United States,” he said. Washington and Tehran severed diplomatic ties in 1980 after the Islamic revolution in
Asefi also sent sent a “formal warning” to the United States over American policy in neighbouring Iraq, as he branded Washington immoral and deceitful.
The situation in Iraq is serious and this is why we have addressed the necessary warning,” he told a press conference.
Washington has no diplomatic relations with Tehran and the warning — the first to be made public at least since the Iraq war began — was passed by diplomatic channels through the Swiss embassy here, which represents US interests in Iran. “We want several things for Iraq, the most important of which are the departure of the occupation forces as quickly as possible and the restitution of authority to the Iraqi people themselves,” Asefi said.
The United States accuses Iran of influencing Iraq’s own Shiite majority to destabilise the country, and allowing foreign fighters to cross its borders into Iraq.
Asefi also insisted that the People’s Mujahedeen, the main armed opposition organisation to the Islamic republic, be expelled from Iraq, where they have been held in a base under US guard.
“They should already have been expelled from Iraq, though they are still under American protection,” Assefi said.
“What we see here is the hypocrisy and immoral approach of the Americans.” Asefi said the situation in Iraq had changed following “the torture of prisoners” by US troops and “attacks on the holy places.”
Meanwhile, an AFP journalist witnessed demonstrators attempting to storm the British embassy in Tehran on Sunday clashed with riot police guarding the building in the fourth such incident in a week.
Some 400 Islamist students pelted stones at the embassy, demanding the withdrawal of British forces from Iraq and the expulsion of the British ambassador from Iran. Hundreds of police formed a cordon around the embassy to stop the demonstrators approaching. Agencies
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_24-5-2004_pg4_14
Wedding Guests Spark Iran Protest
May 23, 2004
Agence France-Presse
From Correspondents in Tehran
Iran has protested to Spain over the presence of two members of its ousted imperial family at the royal wedding in Madrid. "Inviting people like them who are banned by the Iranian people is not an appropriate gesture," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said.
The late shah's wife, Farah Diba, and son Reza Pahlavi joined some 1600 invited guests in the Spanish capital.
"These individuals have no place, not only among our people, but among all peoples of the world," Mr Asefi said.
"The Spanish will eventually realise that these two guests represent nobody at such ceremonies."
Some 30 reigning monarchs attended the marriage of Crown Prince Felipe and divorced former journalist Letizia Ortiz in Madrid's Almudena Cathedral.
The late shah fled Iran at the outset of the 1979 Islamic revolution. He died in exile in Egypt the following year.
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9647212%255E1702,00.html
Iran Chides Spain for Hosting Iranian Royals
May 23, 2004
Islamic Republic News Agency
IRNA
Tehran -- Iran sternly admonished Spain Sunday for inviting the son and widow of the defunct shah to the wedding of Crown Prince Felipe.
"Inviting such individuals, who have been banished by the Iranian people, was not a suitable move," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters here in a weekly news briefing.
Iran`s embassy in Madrid, he said, had formally protested to the Spanish government for inviting Reza Pahlavi and Farah Diba to the wedding.
"These individuals have no place not only among our people, but among other people around the world and the Spaniards will realize later that the individuals invited are not used as delegates in any such ceremonies," Asefi added.
Crown Prince Felipe married former television presenter Letizia Ortiz Saturday amid tight security in the wake of the March 11 train bombings, which killed 191 people.
The 36-year-old heir to the crown exchanged vows with Letizia, a 31-year-old divorcee, before 1,400 guests at the Roman Catholic Almudena Cathedral.
There were reports of protests held before wedding, including by several hundred republicans who staged a parody of a wedding and chanted sloagans "Tomorrow Spain will be a republic!".
According to AFP, the protest passed off without incident under the watchful eye of a large police presence.
Another grouping, the news agency said, denounced this `waste of money`.
Iran`s `Peacock Throne` was overthrown following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which was led by late Imam Khomeini and forced Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to flee.
He died one and a half years later after being denied asylum by one after another government, including by his own closest ally -- the United States.
http://www.irna.ir/?SAB=OK&LANG=EN&PART=_NEWS&TYPE=HE&id=20040523182858F03
U.S.-Iranian 'Wrestling Diplomacy' Takes a Knock
May 23, 2004
Reuters
reuters.com
TEHRAN -- Iranian wrestlers will boycott a pre-Olympic bout with arch-foe the United States in protest at its actions in Iraq, Iran's wrestling federation said Sunday, putting a stranglehold on hopes of sporting rapprochement.
Wrestling has an ancient pedigree in Iran and is one of the country's most popular sports. Iranian wrestlers are tipped for medals at the Athens Olympics in August.
Iranian Wrestling Federation spokesman Majid Rajabi said Iran would not be sending a team to the Titan Games in Atlanta because of fighting around Shi'ite Muslim holy sites in Iraq.
"Iran's wrestling federation decided yesterday to refuse to attend...in protest at the disrespect to the holy shrines and the continued occupation of Iraq by U.S. and British forces," he said, adding that the Iranian team had obtained U.S. visas.
After coming to power in 1997, reformist President Mohammad Khatami hailed sporting ties as a way to build trust with the United States.
The notion of "wrestling diplomacy" seemed to bear fruit in 1998 when the Stars and Stripes greeted the U.S. team in Iran in what was believed to be the flag's first outing since the two nations severed diplomatic relations in 1980.
Mohammad Reza Taleghani, president of the Iranian Wrestling Federation, has been quoted in Iranian media as saying he felt a shared passion for wrestling could nurture a rapprochement between the political sparring partners.
The U.S. Olympic Committee Web site hailed the Titan games as a perfect opportunity for the world's burliest wrestling trio -- the United States, Georgia and Iran -- to measure their strength against each other in the run-up to Athens.
"Iran, which will be competing with the U.S. for the fourth time in the last eight years, has a great rivalry on the mats in the U.S.," the Web site said.
The bouts, according to the site, had been scheduled for June 18-20.
U.S.-Iranian wrestling matches have always been tricky to organize, with the U.S. team nervy about security in Iran and one Iranian team incensed that it was fingerprinted in Chicago.
Iran's most treasured sporting encounter with the so-called "Great Satan" was a 2-1 victory in the 1998 soccer World Cup, which sparked delirious street celebrations.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5227410
Hoover organizes controversial closed door meeting on Iran
SMCCDI (Information Service)
May 23, 2004
The US based "Hoover Foundation" organized, on Friday, a very controversial closed door meeting on Iran in the Californian City of San Francisco. It is beleived that elements, at the Hoover Foundation, are intending to promote some very questionnable individuals as the future alternative of the sham "reforms from within the frame of the theocratic system".
The main organizer of the gathering has been reported as to be Abbas Milani a Historian-Writer, Teacher and member of Hoover.
The main guests of this gathering were several Iranians who some of them have a very dark past and were part of the bloody repression in Iran, such as, the so-called open minded "reformist or Lutherian" Abdol-Karim Soroush who was the head of the repressive Islamic Cultural Revolution in the early 80s. Several students and teachers were killed by Soroush agents, in Tehran and Ahwaz, and thousands of others were purged from Iranian Universities.
Some of the other guests were Shrin Ebadi, Azam Taleghani and Simin Behbahani. It's to note that while Ebadi is known by many Iranians as the "new mouthpiece of the regime's Islamist reformers", Azam Taleghani is known as a very backwarded women who has a dark record of repressive actions in the first years of the Islamic revolution.
The only astonishing point is the participation of Simin Behbani, a poet, who was till now known for her integrity and opposition to the regime.
The news of the presence of Behbahani, in the closed door panel of San Francisco, and her future participation beside the controversial Shirin Ebadi in the May 27th gathering of IAPAC in WDC, is so astonishing that forced Hossein Mohri of KRSI to censor these two informations in his today's Radio program.
Mohri who's more of an 50-80s ideologist than a genuine wise journalist, most likely feared to report all the information for his auditors who are already angered by Ebadi and the work of the regime's well known apologists, such as, Nemazee and Ghahary the two main founders of IAPAC. It's to note that Mohri who's also subject to sharp critisism, made by many Iranians, has promoted individuals which were later used, by some circles in order to promote the baseless theory of "possibility of reforming the regime".
In this line, Mohri can be named as the main responsible for the promotion of questionnable individuals, such as, Kazem Alamdari, Nayereh Tohidi, Ahmad Karimi-Hakak, Abbas Milani and Ali Keshtgar who some of them are former members of leftist terrorist groups or their supporters. These individuals who most of them have close friendship with Mohri, since before the 1979 revolution, were pulled off from dark by the latter and promoted as credible individuals for thousands of unaware auditors.
http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_6322.shtml
Ex-hostage-taker named chief of Iran TV
AP - World News
May 23, 2004
TEHRAN -- Iran's supreme leader on Sunday appointed a former captor in the 1979 hostage crisis as the head of state-run radio and television.
Conservative Ezzatollah Zarghami, 45, was promoted by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from his post as deputy head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.
Zarghami was among militant students who overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 embassy staffers hostage for 444 days in 1979.
Zarghami joined Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards as a senior officer in the early 1980s and served for a decade there.
IRIB enjoys a monopoly over Iranian broadcasting. It has 12 domestic television and radio channels and offers radio programs in 25 languages, including Arabic and Hebrew.
Khamenei appoints the head of IRIB and other key officials.
http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_6323.shtml
Idiots' Regime!
Isn't that interesting, especially when further down this is posted: "TEHRAN: US allegations that Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi spied for Iran are unfounded and designed to divert attention from Washington’s problems in Iraq, the Iranian foreign ministry said on Sunday.
“These espionage allegations are obviously lacking any foundations,” ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
“The Americans are trying to cover up their massive problems, owing to their political unilateralism and their refusal to listen to the opinions of others.”
Umm-Ummm! Baghdad Bob is apparently alive and well and so is every TV camera from CNNABCCBSNBC France, Germany and the BBC in Iraq reporting in the grand old style of BB and people like spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi...freedom just isn't their style, however it is the style of the Iraqi people and the Iraian folks. It isn't the Americans who are trying to cover up stuff; it is the media and the socialists in this country. Socialists encourage oppression, they don't want success for Iraq, Iran or any countries where people must live in constant suppression. Crazy world, ain't it? Freedom and liberty, law and order are such wonderful entities.
II. What is the Wealth of Societies?
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is the most important book in history, which has been written about the *wealth* of human societies. It is interesting that at the start of his work, he compares the hunter societies with the pasturing societies, that have domesticated animals, and writes that the latter can accumulate its product, and for the product, he gives the example of cattle. In fact, the difference of a wild deer and a domesticated cow is in the latter being controllable, and ultimately with the guarantee of law and state, can be owned as property.
The same way, intellectual property, such as inventions, or software, in countries where the rights are secured by the state, is different from free thought and science, and can be controlled and owned, and thus is representative of wealth of a society.
Adam Smith's book was published the year America's Declaration of Independence was written. At that time, the main form of wealth, even in Europe and America, was still landed property. But Smith correctly realized that factory ownership was the future wealth of the world. In cities, this wealth, either grew in relation to the agricultural regions around the city, or in case of cities on the shores of the seas, connections to the foreign trade, were the guarantee for the growth of wealth of the cities.
Today the first case, meaning the new economy benefiting from the needs of the adjacent industries of the past, has been the basis of growth of post-industrial economies in the West. In other countries like Japan, new economy essentially has grown in connection to the global economy. For example, in the recent two decades, economies of India and Singapore were the best examples of this kind of post-industrial development.
It is interesting to note that India's economy was able to seriously grow, when India's government took the securing of Intellectual Property rights very seriously, and companies like Wipro in India, have even done a better job than their Western counterparts, in securing these legal rights for their customers. Ten years ago, in a professional engineering management position at Adaptec, I had an engineering development office in Bangalore, where I used Wipro's services, and they would keep various operations of companies like Adaptec and Tandem, thoroughly shielded from each other, and used separate staffing and other resources, even when doing similar projects in the same building.
Let me return to the discussion, what is the wealth of Iranian society and what will it be into the future? It is true that until a serious alternative to oil is created, the main wealth of Iran is its oil reserves. But the essential issue for Iranian society is creating new wealth, and even the distribution of wealth, should be mainly in the framework of creating new wealth, and not redistributing the old wealth.
Why Adam Smith, in his discussion of Wealth of Nations, starts with *division of labor* in the industrial society, and states that agricultural production could not easily be subject to division of labor, and why in contrast, he emphasizes, that factory production, in his time, which was a young production, had already divided into thousands of parts. I think he wants to understand and move with the future trend of wealth building, in other words the dividing of work and the plenitude of the parts, meant the ownership of greater number of parts, and thus was a representative of the expansion of industrial property. If the growth of industrial society was measurable with the growth of division of labor, in our times, the post-industrial development, is exactly measured by the degree of expansion of intellectual property, and the number of registered inventions is a good indicator for this expansion, and this is the subject to consider whether in relation to production of wealth or its distribution,
In my paper on Post-Anthropocentric Production, I noted that molecular production, which basically does not need human activity as a tool, will be the main way of production in the future. And a country like Iran will not be able to compete with post-anthropocentric production in the world, in the global economy, using old anthropocentric production. Therefore, post-industrial production for creating wealth in Iran is as important in Iran as in the U.S., and the competition will be on the best inventions and their growth, and the cornerstone of value of such production is none other than the intellectual property of the processes involved.
It is interesting that today, India and Singapore have started doing many *basic* projects which were previously possible only in the West. Thus it is apparent that such production endeavors for the developing countries are not only possible, but are the key to their future success, and in fact, these productions, will be the main source of wealth in Futurist Iran.
III- Social Justice
The capitalist and socialist approach to social justice will not work for future Iran, and neither will any middle road between the two, such as social-democracy. And obviously the return to the past has lost for a long time. One has to go forward beyond the capitalist and socialist solutions
a. Those who think social justice in the post-industrial economy is not an issue of Iran, and think they can use capitalism as the solution for Iran, in effect are offering the capitalist solutions of the kind of privatizations of IRI, and will be quickly defeated in competition with the West, and will end up in protectionism, and ultimately will again cause the distancing of Iran from the global economy, this time in the framework of a private economy.
b. The dream of socialists who want distribution of wealth of industrial society, in the world of today, and are thus promoting a state economy, in practice will scare the foreign investors from investing in Iran, because of the state privileges. Moreover, internally, corruption and misuse, as it has been tested over and over again in socialist countries, will paralyze Iran's economy.
If in the developed countries, the achievements of socialist movements within capitalist systems, have created adjustments like welfare state and social rights, in Iran, even such systems do not exist, and moreover, the new development, will not be gradual like the Western democracies, and in practice, similar to the experience of countries like Zimbabwe, such plans can oscillate the country from one of these two scenarios to the other, and the result will be nothing but the destruction of society.
In other words the old capitalist and socialist solutions, or mixtures of the two in programs of social-democracy, are not a solution, rather are repetition of the same defeated vicious circles of the past, even though the issue of social justice, is an inseparable part of post-industrial development plan for Iran, and without an effective plan of social justice, no development plan can be successful in Iran.
In my opinion, with regards to social justice in Iran, the following points should be considered:
1.The state to spend its resources on supporting the educational institutions to create multitude of new inventions in the next 10 years.
This way Iran can reach an acceptable level relative to its size and population, in this regard, to be able to compete in the global economy.
2. A property-owning economy be accepted as the main form of economy in Iran with the necessary exponential taxes.
As I noted in Is Socialism More just? , the panacea of socialism has a lot of attraction among Iranian intellectuals:
"We are talking about a country that people have hardly paid any taxes and the state has always been the biggest owner and has owned the oil industry which is 90% of all the revenue -generating capital that the country owns and the state has been paying the citizens and not the taxpayers paying the state. So it is a pretty tough undertaking, to plan a property-owning democracy for Iran, and wanting to build-in justice into that system. Whereas in the eyes of the leftist intellectuals, there is a shortcut of socialism where one can just make the ownership of the means of production to be public, and social justice to follow. Easy and quick panacea to all the social ills in one easy shot.
"Regardless of how democratic liberal socialism to be, it will end up with small part of society to control the economy as had been seen by the elites in the socialist countries. Because they are the ones who will represent the productive assets and lack of ownership in the means of production means that such small elites *are* the owners. In contrast, the property-owning democracy avoids this, by ensuring the widespread ownership of productive assets and human capital, and this is why equal opportunity as well as political liberties are supported to make the system fair.
"In fact, to maximize the minimum of the basic needs in society that John Rawls emphasizes in his book “Theory of Justice” in 1971, and his venture into enlightened self-interest are beyond the current Western societies. He always notes that for fairness, the 'greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society' is to be guaranteed. In other words supporting the first principle, meaning political liberties, and ensuring to maximize the social minimum, does not mean to stop the motivation for activity, which is killed in the socialist societies of even the Swedish type, because is is achieved here, thru the second principle of justice, i.e. equal opportunity, and not by charity."
In sum, the property-owning economy, more than a property-less economy, has the capacity to establish social justice, but the issue of income from national mutual fund alongside income from work, and a proper tax system, are the key issues for social justice that I note below:
3. To use a plan like the Nation Mutual Fund for Iran's oil industry, as proposed by Mr. Ahmad Taghvai and Dr. Hossein Bagherzadeh.
4. To consider a Welfare System, as I have described in A Futurist Viewpoint in 1989, using Albus's model of a National Mutual Fund and not the government.
As noted in Post-Anthropocentric Production , "if the worldwide need for human labor drops, people in all countries, whose income is based on human labor as an intelligent tool in manufacturing or agriculture, will lose their source of income, and their lives will be directly impacted by such changes."
It is important to note that the welfare system that is being proposed, is a *non-governmental* pension fund, but it is for all people of all ages and this way the minimum income of the society will be maximized, by owners of shares of this pension, and this income, will be independent of the citizen's income from work. This plan, by creating an income, separate from work, for all people, will reduce the human damages of the economic change as the society moves towards a post-industrial production.
As we know, someone like the singer Britney Spears, or soccer player Ali Dai, or a successful software developer, may end up with millions of dollars of income from their work, whereas others in similar profession may have no income from their work, because the work of the former have been recognized as *best*. I have discussed this issue in details in Knowledge Economy & Social Justice.
Should the above differences be removed? I do not think that should be the goal, because that way the incentive for creating intellectual property will vanish, and the result will be like the slaves in the U.S., who basically had incentive for consuming more and working less. In fact, at the time of Abraham Lincoln in the U.S. of 1862, The Homestead Act was done to create the incentive for property, in opposition to the Southern states of slavery, and it was successful and was continued till 1976, and even halting it 100 years later, was because no more land was left for such plan. Therefore, if today, a similar plan, for granting the rights of individual inventions of educational and government entities, to the inventors themselves, is executed, for example within a time period like the 5 years of Homestead act, that was the time allowed for building a house and cultivating the land, such a plan can become a strong incentive for entrepreneurial activity.
In other words, my intention is not to prevent income from work, but it is to create appropriate laws for taxation, and also suitable laws for companies to give shares to their employees, companies that produce these kinds of intellectual property. And this way an increase of wealth and a fairer and more just distribution of wealth will be resulted. Perhaps it would be right to set aside a portion of the shares of these companies, at the time of them going public, to be allocated to the whole profession, to help the activity of the members of that profession who have less income. I have extensively discussed the formation of value in new economy in A Theory of Uniqueness Value and those same criteria should be used to determine the exponential taxing of this income
IV-Conclusio
The issue of production and distribution of wealth in future Iran cannot be solved by the programs of capitalism or socialism, and the post-anthropocentric production of post-industrial societies, have as much significance for Iran's future economy, as for the U.S Economy. Working for molecular prodcution, development of intellectual property in the universities governmental private firms, and NGOs, and creating a welfare system based on national mutual funds, are the type of work needed for production and distribution of wealth in future Iran
Hoping for a Futurist, Federal, Democratic, and Secular Republic in Iran
http://www.ghandchi.com/334-WealthEng.htm
This Sam Ghandchi sounds like a REAL SOCIALIST!
Thanks Doc.
I appreciate the news.
Iran admits regular contact with Chalabi
The Guardian
Monday May 24, 2004
Julian Borger in Washington and James Sturcke
The strange decline in relations between the US military and its one-time Iraqi ally, Ahmad Chalabi, took a new twist yesterday when Iran admitted having had regular dialogue with the former Pentagon favourite. The authorities in Tehran - and Mr Chalabi - were quick to deny suggestions that he had handed US secrets to Iran.
But an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, told reporters that Tehran had maintained "continuous and permanent dialogue with Chalabi and other members of the Iraqi governing council". He added that spying charges were "unfounded and baseless".
Mr Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, said the accusation that he leaked secrets to Iraq's neighbour was a "smear" orchestrated by the CIA director, George Tenet.
Mr Chalabi, whose fall from grace with the Bush administration was symbolised by a raid on his Baghdad home and office last Thursday, appeared on a string of US news programmes to denounce the espionage allegations against him and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim.
"We never provided any classified information from the US to Iran - neither I nor anyone in the INC," he told CNN. "That is a charge being put out by George Tenet. I say let him bring all his charges, all his documents. We will bring all our charges and all our documents to the US Congress, and let Congress have hearings and resolve this issue."
He said Mr Karim, who is being sought by the Iraqi police, would also give sworn testimony to Congress.
Today's edition of Time magazine reports that US officials are being investigated for passing state secrets illegally to the INC, and that US intelligence has "hard" evidence that Mr Chalabi met a senior officer of Iran's ministry of intelligence and security in Iraq.
Anti-war sentiment has been simmering in Iran, particularly with the US attacks on Shia holy sites in Iraq, and yesterday some 500 protesters rallied for the fourth time in little over a week outside the British embassy in Tehran.
The crowd of mostly hardliners threw firecrackers and tomatoes at the embassy and called for the ambassador, Richard Dalton, to be expelled.
Riot police with batons and shields prevented the students from getting close to the main gate of the embassy. About a dozen people were arrested as police tried to disperse the crowd. About 100 of the demonstrators staged a sit-in in front of the embassy.
The British embassy has been the focus of protests as the US has no diplomatic presence in Iran.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1141045/posts
Iran Poll:
Is it true that Iranians are the most pro-American (or least anti-American) people in the Islamic world?
-- No 18.31 % (113)
-- Yes 72.77 % (449)
-- Not Sure 8.91 % (55)
http://poll.mashregh.com/
as of 5/24/04
I have read his articles on his own webpage. He is a socialist for sure!
Chalabi: Iran Spy?
By Niles Lathem
New York Post | May 24, 2004
Jordan's King Abdullah fueled the U.S. move against Iraqi leader Ahmed Chalabi by providing bombshell intelligence that his group was spying for Iran, The Post has learned.
An explosive dossier that the Jordanian monarch recently brought with him to White House sessions with President Bush detailed Mafia-style extortion rackets and secret information on U.S. military operations being passed to Iran, diplomats said.
That new information led to the Bush administration's decision to stop its $340,000-a-month payments to Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress and back an aggressive Iraqi criminal probe into his activities.
The file was compiled by Jordan's intelligence service, which has had an interest in Chalabi since the 1990s, when the Iraqi exile leader was convicted in absentia for embezzling millions of dollars.
The scandal stemmed from the collapse of the Bank of Petra, which Chalabi controlled, the diplomatic officials said.
Just months ago, Chalabi had been favored by Bush administration hard-liners as the next leader of Iraq and sat behind First Lady Laura Bush at the State of the Union Address in January.
The Pentagon airlifted Chalabi and members of the INC into Iraq the day after Saddam Hussein fell and gave them prominent roles in the new governing council, in charge of the Finance Ministry and ridding Iraqi government agencies of Saddam's Ba'ath Party.
But the U.S. already felt burned by the INC's involvement in passing on questionable pre-war intelligence on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
On Thursday, the relationship came to a bitter end as Iraqi police, backed by U.S. troops and FBI agents, raided Chalabi's palatial Baghdad home and issued arrest warrants for 15 members of the INC.
Officially, the raid was described as part of an Iraqi probe, launched by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq.
Among the charges being pursued is that INC members on the government's "de-Ba'athification committee" instead ran a scheme in which they demanded payoffs from ex-Ba'ath Party members. In return, those Ba'athists were allowed to avoid arrest or to stay off lists the INC was preparing of people banned from jobs in the new Iraqi government, sources said.
Chalabi aides running the new government's Finance Ministry are also accused of ripping off $22 million from the Iraqi Treasury when Iraq issued new currency late last year, U.S. officials said.
King Abdullah's dossier provided critical confirmation of U.S intelligence gathered elsewhere that the INC was playing a double game with Ba'athists and that Chalabi and his security chief were passing sensitive information to Iran.
That was when the Bush administration decided to break all ties with Chalabi, sources said.
Chalabi accused the United States of trying to intimidate him at a time when he is speaking out against the U.S. occupation and threatening to go public with bombshell files on the U.N. oil-for-food scandal.
Yesterday, he called an emergency meeting of the Governing Council seeking to get official condemnation of the raid.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13490
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