JURIST - Paper Chase: US raids pro-US Iraqi Governing Council leader's house, offices

US troops and Iraqi police Thursday raided a Baghdad house and offices used by Ahmad Chalabi, a prominent member of the Iraqi Governing Council, head of the exile Iraqi National Congress party, and a longtime US political ally who has recently been criticized by American officials for providing false or misleading intelligence to US authorities and who is suspected of extortion, corrutpion, and even passing sensitive information to neighboring Iran. The Pentagon said on Tuesday that it was stopping its annual payments to the INC of some $340,000 a month (see this Newsweek report). Computers and files were seized in Thursday's raid but Chalabi himself was not detained. Despite having spent over 40 years in exile from Iraq, Chalabi was a favorite of the Pentagon in the period before the 2003 invasion and was flown into the country soon after the fall of Baghdad to establish a local political base, but he has proven unpopular with ordinary Iraqis. In 1992 he was convicted of bank fraud by a military court in Jordan. His nephew, Salem Chalabi, has been named President of the Iraqi tribunal that is expected to try Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity. AP this morning has a story quoting Salem as saying that his uncle told him by telephone that Iraqi and American authorities "entered his home and put the guns to his head in a very humiliating way that reminds everyone of the conduct of the former regime." The US, Salem went on to claim, "must be afraid of his political movement." Reuters has more.

UPDATE: Ahmad Chalabi himself has reacted angrily to the US raid, saying "I am America's best friend in Iraq; if the CPA finds it necessary to direct an armed attack against my home you can see the state of relations between the CPA and the Iraqi people." BBC News has more. Chalabi also stated he was cutting off all ties with the Coaliton, as reported here by Bloomberg.