Ahmed Chalabi

AHMED CHALABI

Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, I thank my friend from Florida who knows much more about what I am going to mention today. He and I worked on what I am going to talk about for some time. And that is-there are reports coming in that the home and offices of Ahmed Chalabi were raided today in Baghdad.

I do not have clear evidence yet as to whether they were raided by the Iraqi government or by the CPA, but both the Senator and I have been incredible skeptics of this administration's reliance on this fellow, Ahmed Chalabi, who has been indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced in Jordan.

For the last 2 years-although I have nothing personal against Mr. Ahmed Chalabi-I have been urging this administration, particularly the Secretary of Defense, the Vice President, and Mr. Wolfowitz: Do not put our eggs into Mr. Chalabi's basket.

Mr. Chalabi is the President of the Iraqi National Congress. I was so concerned about this that my friend from Nebraska, Senator Hagel, and I were literally smuggled into northern Iraq about a month before the war began because we wanted to meet with the Barzani and Talibani clients in northern Iraq to determine what their attitude was, first, toward our invasion with Iraq-would they be with us? There were reports that they would have been, but we wanted to find out firsthand.

And B, we wanted to find out whether Ahmed Chalabi spoke for them. The leaders of both those clans said: We want to make it clear that the INC does not speak for us. We did form the INC with him, but he is out for himself, not us.

I could never quite understand the incredible preoccupation of the administration with Mr. Chalabi. I think that reliance has done us great damage in terms of establishing legitimacy.

Today's raid comes on the heels of an announcement earlier this week that the Defense Department belatedly, after well over a year, has cut off the $340,000 monthly payment to the INC, headed by Mr. Chalabi.

Last month, I wrote to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense asking them to explain why we continue to pay Mr. Chalabi a monthly stipend. The action was seen as sort of putting our thumb on the scale-we say we want the Iraqis to decide their outcome, and here we are pouring into one man, an outfit, $340,000 a month.

It is no secret Mr. Chalabi has long been the favorite of the Pentagon civilians and the Vice President, although the CIA, the uniformed military, and the State Department have been adamantly opposed to him.

We recently had a meeting with the Secretary of Defense in a closed session, but I am allowed to say this in public, and I raised the question of funds to Chalabi and the phrase-well, I guess I cannot quote exactly what the phrase was. I cannot quote the Secretary. But the point is there has been a real difficulty in pushing back.

It has been clear for some time our close association with Mr. Chalabi has damaged American interests in Iraq. Chalabi is the best known figure in the Iraqi Governing Council, according to a poll taken. We appointed him. By the way, a poll taken a couple of months ago in Iraq shows that he is not only the best known member of the Governing Council, but he is also the least popular, with a negative rating of over 60 percent.

Chalabi, as my colleagues will recall, was flown in to southern Iraq literally days before the statue of Saddam fell. It was actually during the war; he was flown in to a portion of southern Iraq we had already conquered and passed. He had been flown in without the knowledge of the State Department and other senior officials. I guess he was going to be the triumphant Shi'a who was going to march through the Shi'a territories heading up to Baghdad, except one thing, nobody liked him and nobody followed him.

I do not know what it took to get the message to this administration that this guy was not helpful but this guy was hurting our legitimacy. At that time, I rose in the Senate and said, what are we doing here? I think my friend from Florida as well, if not here in the Senate, I know in our hearings, said, what are we doing this for? How are we saying we are liberating the Iraqis, we are going to let them choose their government and we are flying in a handpicked guy?

Well, that sort of went south, figuratively speaking. It was clear we were attempting to put him in a place to take over the reins of Baghdad. Toward the end of that year, he organized the militia, which was implicated in instances of looting in Baghdad. The U.S. military wisely ordered the militia to disband, but there were some supporters here saying it is okay for him to set up a militia.

We are trying to disband militias, and we wonder why we have so little legitimacy. This is not Monday-morning quarter-backing. If need be, for the record, I will come back and lay out all the statements we made 2 years ago about Mr. Chalabi, a year ago, 8 months ago, 10 months ago, as recently as a hearing 2 days ago in the Senate.

It has done us serious damage. High-ranking civilians in the Defense Department continue to back Mr. Chalabi, despite numerous warnings about his past dealings.

The King of Jordan made known his country's distaste for Mr. Chalabi. They did not hide it. The Foreign Minister of Jordan came to me personally and said, for God's sake, do not deal with this guy; do you not understand he is going to hurt you?

Mr. Chalabi has been convicted on fraud charges stemming from a failure of the Petra Bank which Chalabi headed. In recent months, Chalabi has been moving closer and closer to the religious elements in Iraq, apparently belying his claims to be a secular leader. His close association with hardliners in Iran, including Ayatollah Khamenei, has been a matter of mystery and some suspicion, but we continued to support him.

The reason for today's raid is not yet clear, although there were reports earlier this week that one of Chalabi's associates, the finance minister, is being investigated by Iraqi police for a scam involving government vehicles. There have been other reports of corruption allegations as well.

I am not making a judgment on that at this moment. We will wait to see. But I am making a judgment, did make a judgment, and will continue to make the judgment that Mr. Chalabi is hurting us, not helping us.

One other point; Mr. Chalabi's guys got in and got hold of a whole lot of intelligence data that was Saddam Hussein's. He refuses to give it to us. He refuses to turn it over to the U.S. military. He will let us see it but not keep it. And this is our guy. It is like our guy in Havana. You know, our guy?

I do not know what it takes. It is like taking a wombat and banging it up the side of the heads of some of these guys and the civilians in the Defense Department.

This guy is bad news for the United States, whether the reason for the raiding of his headquarters and his home relates to corruption or not. We have tarnished our reputation by our association with this man. It is time to begin recouping it by ending our efforts to foist an unpopular leader on Iraqis and supporting a process which will produce more legitimate leaders.