I heard about this on the way in today, U.S. military raids Chalabi's home. My first thought was that this is the US finally coming to the realization that "our" guy has turned on us and he has become the problem. But then I started to think that what better way to legitimize "our" guy in the minds of the Iraqis than to start terrorizing him like we have the rest of the people in the country?

So who is Ahmed Chalabi? He's been our guy all along. He was instrumental in producing the false justification for war in Iraq along with his co-conspirator form the NY Times Judith Miller. We got him and his people to Baghdad in time for them to help celebrate when Saddam's statue came down last year. He is also a member of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) and has ambitions to be either Iraqs President or Prime Minister.

Why has he possibly fallen out of favor? Two things. His illegitimacy from the beginning as noted in this article:

The former exile's political movement was funded for years by the US government, and he was originally slated by the Pentagon to run Iraq's postinvasion government. But his lack of evident domestic support forced that plan to be scrapped last April. And Mr. Chalabi has increasingly fallen out of favor with the US.

The other could be this from an article co-written by his co-conspirator at the NY Times, U.S. and Iraq Spar Over Who Should Run Corruption Inquiry Into Oil-for-Food Program, and guess who is in the middle:

The disagreement over which agency should run Iraq's investigation raises questions about the effectiveness of any inquiry.

Beyond the political question of who should run a potentially explosive investigation, there is the practical question of access to thousands of documents that remain in the hands of individual Governing Council members like Ahmad Chalabi.

Mr. Chalabi, a former exile who returned with the strong backing of many senior Pentagon officials, has strongly objected to Mr. Bremer's decision to bypass the council on the oil-for-food inquiry.

Mr. Bremer now controls the spending of Iraqi money. Presumably, control over the purse strings would pass to Iraqis after the transfer of sovereignty, and the transitional government, with or without the current Governing Council members, could decide who should investigate the oil-for-food program.

So it could be that the raid was to recover these documents. This shows him fighting for Iraqi control of the UN investigation into the Oil-For-Food Program.

Mr. Chalabi is fighting for his political life in Iraq. But for him stay in power he needs the Iraqis to think he is one of them and not with the Americans. He is a Shia Muslim and just think how it would benefit the US to have a pro-US Shia Muslim running a country that is 60% Shia. There is so much maneuvering going on right now in Iraq and the current members of the IGC want to keep power any way they can. I'm just saying that maybe he hasn't fallen out of favor as much as we are being led to believe.

[UPDATE] I found this right after I posted, Neocon Lets Cat Out of Bag.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 7:41 AM