Chalabi's Reversal of Fortune

Iraqi shunned by Washington finds himself courted anew

When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi last week, sources in the U.S. government say she kicked off the conversation with the understatement of the year. "We haven't talked for a while," she said to the onetime Pentagon favorite, who by last year had become a pariah in the halls of Washington. Not so long ago the National Security Council presented the White House with a plan to discredit him titled "Marginalizing Chalabi." He was accused by unnamed intelligence officials of leaking U.S. secrets to Iran. His home in Baghdad was raided by the U.S.-run occupation authority,...

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