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Pundits and reporters are being sold on the idea that Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile leader, is largely the creation of American neo-conservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Richard Cheney. They miss the point. Chalabi is so prominent in discussions of Iraq's future because for 10 years he has been leading the central organization of Iraqis opposed to Saddam and the Ba'ath regime. The Iraqi National Congress (INC) was founded by Chalabi in 1992 as an all-inclusive democratic opposition movement to remove Saddam and create a united federal government of laws in Iraq. The INC is not a...

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Senior Iraqi Shi'ite leaders said on Saturday that a radical Muslim group led by an ambitious young rival orchestrated the killing of cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei in Najaf this week. Khoei was hacked to death by a mob at Imam Ali Shrine, the holiest Shi'ite site, days after he returned from exile in London to help Iraq make the transition to democracy. Iraqi Shi'ite leaders said Jimaat-e-Sadr-Thani, a splinter group led by Moqtada Sadr, the 22-year-old son of a late spiritual leader in Iraq, carried out Thursday's attack which left al-Khoei and another cleric dead. "The attackers...

Armed groups order Shi'ite leader to quit Iraq By Mehrdad Balali KUWAIT, April 13 (Reuters) - Armed radical groups have surrounded the house of Iraq's top Shi'ite Muslim cleric in the central city of Najaf, giving him 48 hours to leave the country, aides to the cleric said on Sunday. "Armed thugs and hooligans have had the house of (Grand) Ayatollah (Ali) Sistani under siege since yesterday. They have told him to either leave Iraq in 48 hours or they would attack," Kuwait-based Ayatollah Abulqasim Dibaji told Reuters. "Total terror reigns in Najaf. They have told other ayatollahs to leave...

Apr. 10, 2003 'No place in new Iraq for Palestinians' By DOUGLAS DAVIS There will be strong ties with Israel but no place for Palestinians in the new Iraq, a leading member of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) told me late Wednesday night. The Washington-backed organization, a secular, democratic umbrella for Iraq's Shi'ite, Sunni, and Kurdish communities, is committed to a unitary state, with a large measure of autonomy for what they envisage will be three federal components. Until recently, the vigorously pro-Western movement was based in London. Now most of its leaders have relocated to various parts of Iraq,...

<p>DEARBORN -- On Wednesday they danced in the streets. By Thursday, a more somber mood had settled over Dearborn's Iraqis.</p> <p>The joy was shattered at the news that two members of Dearborn's Karbalaa Islamic Center -- exiled Iraqis who rushed back to their homeland to aid in the country's rebuilding -- had died.</p>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday it would convene a meeting of Iraqis in the southern city of Nassiriya on Tuesday to discuss the future of Iraq (news - web sites) and an eventual interim authority to govern the country. The meeting, which a U.S. official said was to be chaired by U.S. presidential envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, was expected to be the first in a series Washington aims to organize leading to a Baghdad conference to choose an Iraqi governing authority. It was expected to include Iraqis from inside and outside the country, including opposition figures and...

KANAN MAKIYA'S WAR DIARY April 10 Only at TNR Online Post date: 04.10.03 Baathism died in Iraq yesterday. The sight of the oversized bronze head of Saddam rolling in the dust and being beaten with shoes by exuberant Iraqis is perhaps the most important image of Iraqi politics of the last 50 years. It was the end of the republic of fear. Two Iraqis with whom I was camping out in Washington, D.C., woke me up at 5 a.m. yesterday so we could watch the images of a free Iraq. Tears rolled down our cheeks uncontrollably. The greeting we had...

Informed sources from the Iraqi opposition told Albawaba that 30 portfolios in the planned interim government have already been endorsed. The government, to be led by the retired US general, Jay Garner, will include technocrats and will assume responsibility after the upcoming conference, scheduled next week in the Iraqi city of al Nasiriyah, is held. Additionally, the sources told Albawaba the names of some of the new ministers. According to the opposition, Brigadier General Tawfiq al Yaseri, who led the 1991 uprising against the toppled Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, secretary general of the Iraqi National Coalition and spokesman for the...

Reprinted from NewsMax.com CIA Derides Pentagon's Choice to Replace SaddamNewsMax.com WiresTuesday, April 8, 2003 WASHINGTON – The Central Intelligence Agency has issued a report claiming that the opposition leader airlifted by the Pentagon to Iraq over the weekend, Ahmad Chalabi, would not be an effective leader to replace Saddam Hussein because many Iraqis do not like him either. In a classified report distributed widely within the U.S. government in the past week, the CIA argues that Chalabi, a favorite of Pentagon civilian officials, and Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim, the leader of the Tehran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq,...

The Iraqi opposition, for so many years waiting in exile, was back in central Iraq last night with more than 700 of its fighters, flown in by the US to help the Allied forces with their push to topple Saddam Hussein. Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the London-based Iraqi National Congress (INC), was reportedly in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, having been flown in with his men from northern Iraq and another undisclosed location. In a statement released in Kuwait, Mr Chalabi urged the Iraqi people to rise up against the regime. "The war of national liberation which Iraqis have...

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...

Key Iraqi Opposition Leader Back in Iraq .c The Associated Press CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - An opposition leader who aspires to lead post-Saddam Hussein Iraq has announced his presence in southern Iraq with a call on fellow Iraqis to help remove ``the final remnants'' of Saddam's regime. Ahmad Chalabi made the call in Nasiriyah on Sunday, his Iraqi National Congress said in a statement issued in London and received by The Associated Press in Cairo. The group said 700 of its members were also in the southern Iraqi town as the ``1st Battalion Free Iraqi Forces.'' Iraqi National Congress spokesman...

Iraqi opposition leader is in Nassiriya WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) - Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi has arrived in the southern Iraqi town of Nassiriya at the head of 700 fighters, joining the U.S. military campaign against the government, an opposition official said on Monday. The presence of Chalabi, the best known leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), indicates that Pentagon plans for the future of Iraq have gained ground over the rival plans of the State Department, which does not rate Chalabi highly. The INC official, who asked not to be named, said she spoke to one of...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States is beginning to build a new Iraqi army even before Saddam Hussein's forces are defeated, deploying some of the nation's exiles and internal dissidents around the country. Several hundred soldiers of the Iraqi National Congress exile group were flown to an area near the city of Nasiriyah, the group said Sunday. "These are Iraqi citizens who want to fight for a free Iraq, who will become basically the core of the new Iraqi army once Iraq is free," said Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. More will be...

<p>U.S.-led forces were airlifting soldiers of an Iraqi exile group into southern Iraq to serve as humanitarian liaison officers and help root out Saddam Hussein's paramilitary among the population, the group said Sunday.</p> <p>The first of more than 1,000 expected, some 700 soldiers of the Iraqi National Congress were near the city of Nasiriyah, the group said. The city was brought under control of the U.S.-led invasion force only a few days ago after a two-week battle by U.S. Marines, defense officials have said.</p>

NEW YORK: In the first major step towards establishing a physical Iraqi presence among coalition forces in their final surge towards Baghdad, the US military has begun airlifting Iraqi opposition fighters into southern Iraq. The airlift, which began Friday night, will put about 1,000 Iraqi opposition forces into a base in southern Iraq controlled by coalition forces, ABC television reported on Sunday. The force is under the control of the Iraqi National Congress and its leader Ahmed Chalabi, who will accompany his troops into Iraq. The opposition forces will also attempt to help set up liaison between US-led forces and...

BRIEFING: AT WAR WITH IRAQBY WORLD TRIBUNE.COM WITH MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE Day 17 — April 5, 3003See Previous Briefings: Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Saddam regime executes senior officers LONDON — Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is said to have ordered the execution of several senior officers who had refused to kill Iraqi civilians in a dirty tricks operation. The Iraqi National Congress said four Republican Guard officers were executed for refusing to attack a street in Baghdad and ensure the deaths of a large number of civilians....

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. CAIRO (Reuters) - With U.S. troops rattling at the gates of Baghdad, leading experts believe Washington may end up having to rely on former members of President Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath party to run post-war Iraq. The Bush administration has talked ambitiously of reshaping Iraq into a democracy that would be a beacon to the Middle East after an initial period of military rule. But Arab and Western analysts say that seems unrealistic in a divided country with no democratic tradition that has endured 34 years of totalitarian rule built on...

A key Iraqi dissident group that has backers from every major religious faction in the country is being snubbed by the Central Intelligence Agency in what one newspaper describes as a bid to cover up intelligence mistakes made during the 1990s. The decision to marginalize the Iraqi National Congress, carried forward into the Bush-era under Clinton appointed CIA Director George Tenet, is making the task of liberation more difficult, the Wall Street Journal said Monday, by complicating efforts of U.S. forces to gain the trust of the Iraqi people. The Iraqi National Congress is the only opposition movement that...

Dangerous WatersWill the U.S. nurture an Islamist Iraq? A proposed first meeting of the Iraqi opposition on Iraqi soil has been delayed by disputes between Kurds and Turks, the late arrival of the U.S. delegation, and opposition leaders' criticism of American plans to install a temporary postwar military government. Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, fears the U.S. will leave Saddam Hussein's followers in charge. Kanan Makiya, an adviser to the Congress, says the U.S. may shunt aside those "who have invested whole lifetimes, and suffered greatly, fighting Saddam Hussein." However, another aspect of plans for Iraq...