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Chalabi's US lawyers go on the offensive, against the Jordanian bank fraud charges against him, while Chalabi reportedly returns from Iran to Iraq, and promptly goes missing. Knight Ridder reports the Us-filed lawsuit accuses Jordanian authorities not only of framing Chalabi for embezzlement back in 1989, but of colluding with the CIA on the more recent allegations Chalabi spied for Tehran:
In Washington, U.S. lawyers for Chalabi filed a federal court lawsuit that accused the Jordanian government of illegally seizing Chalabi's bank in 1989 and framing him on embezzlement charges to stop him from exposing illegal arms sales to Saddam.
The smear campaign continued into this year, the suit says, when Jordanian officials enlisted unnamed CIA officials last spring to spread to U.S. reporters "the knowingly false story" that Chalabi had told Iran that the United States was monitoring its secret communications.
Meantime, the New York Times reports, Chalabi continues to pursue his campaign to appeal to Iraq's Shiite insurgents and their sympathizers.
Despite the day's troubles, there were signs that Mr. Chalabi might be enjoying the new attention. In an appeal to poor Shiites, his staff printed posters with his face and the words, "We'll be back to stop the massacre at Najaf," the city where the rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has been under siege by American and Iraqi forces since last week.
As for Mr. Chalabi's relationship with Mr. Sadr, Mr. Musawi said that the two men "are not that close. Yet."
Moqtada reportedly receives funds and instructions from Tehran. Whether Chalabi does as well, as some allege, isn't clear, to me anyhow. But as Chalabi apparently sees it, what's good for him, is good for Tehran. If Chalabi serves Iran's interests in Iraq by helping forge some united radical Iraqi Shiite political block in alliance with al Sadr, Iran is gaining an extraordinary hand in Iraqi politics, and Chalabi is acting as Iran's agent even as he acts as his own.