Sazar
05-13-05, 10:10 AM
He was the darling, he was the scapegoat, he IS the darling again.
People are not wrong for calling him a survivor. And yet I cannot help but be worried about his re-ascendence after all that is known about him and what he has done not just in the past wrt Iraq but in other nations.
He is currently heading the Iraqi Oil Ministry whereby he controls the maximum amount of revenue entering the Iraqi coffers.
The more amusing aspect of his ascendence to the new position in Iraq's brand new government is that instead of continued charges of fraud that nearly brought Jordan to its knees, Iraq (on behalf of Chalabi) has asked Jordan for a formal pardon on the fraud charges.
I guess a deputy prime minister with an out-standing fraud charge on his resume just doesn't look so good.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8472734
Jordan is considering a request by Iraq to pardon former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi but would insist on the return of millions of dollars he was convicted of embezzling in a bank scandal, officials said on Thursday.
Chalabi's resurgence as one of four deputy prime ministers in Iraq's first elected government since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 has forced his status onto the agenda of Jordanian-Iraqi ties, officials said.
They said Jordan's King Abdullah told Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who proposed a pardon during a visit to Amman this week, that he was ready to review Chalabi's conviction by a military court in 1992.
But the monarch, who has the power as the ultimate legal authority to issue a royal pardon, made no commitment beyond that, one official said.
"There are legal and financial aspects that have to be addressed first," another official involved in the case said. "The financial issues are complex and any settlement will include retrieval of sums that the Central Bank had to pay to bail out depositors."
Jordanian investigators estimated the missing bank deposits at $300 million.
A military court convicted Chalabi in absentia of embezzlement, fraud and breach of trust after a bank he ran collapsed in 1989, shaking Jordan's financial system.
Jordanian investigators say they unravelled a web of gross irregularities at Petra Bank which Chalabi founded during a long residence in the country, involving the siphoning of depositors' money to Chalabi's offshore accounts.
Chalabi, who fled Jordan as the scandal broke, denies any wrongdoing and says the charges were politically motivated.
The pardon would lift a sentence of 22 years hard labor on a man who once enjoyed great influence in Jordan.
Chalabi moved on to create a CIA-backed Iraqi opposition group, which included Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Continued ...
How many lives does he indeed have, and how much faith can we put in him?
People are not wrong for calling him a survivor. And yet I cannot help but be worried about his re-ascendence after all that is known about him and what he has done not just in the past wrt Iraq but in other nations.
He is currently heading the Iraqi Oil Ministry whereby he controls the maximum amount of revenue entering the Iraqi coffers.
The more amusing aspect of his ascendence to the new position in Iraq's brand new government is that instead of continued charges of fraud that nearly brought Jordan to its knees, Iraq (on behalf of Chalabi) has asked Jordan for a formal pardon on the fraud charges.
I guess a deputy prime minister with an out-standing fraud charge on his resume just doesn't look so good.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8472734
Jordan is considering a request by Iraq to pardon former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi but would insist on the return of millions of dollars he was convicted of embezzling in a bank scandal, officials said on Thursday.
Chalabi's resurgence as one of four deputy prime ministers in Iraq's first elected government since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 has forced his status onto the agenda of Jordanian-Iraqi ties, officials said.
They said Jordan's King Abdullah told Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who proposed a pardon during a visit to Amman this week, that he was ready to review Chalabi's conviction by a military court in 1992.
But the monarch, who has the power as the ultimate legal authority to issue a royal pardon, made no commitment beyond that, one official said.
"There are legal and financial aspects that have to be addressed first," another official involved in the case said. "The financial issues are complex and any settlement will include retrieval of sums that the Central Bank had to pay to bail out depositors."
Jordanian investigators estimated the missing bank deposits at $300 million.
A military court convicted Chalabi in absentia of embezzlement, fraud and breach of trust after a bank he ran collapsed in 1989, shaking Jordan's financial system.
Jordanian investigators say they unravelled a web of gross irregularities at Petra Bank which Chalabi founded during a long residence in the country, involving the siphoning of depositors' money to Chalabi's offshore accounts.
Chalabi, who fled Jordan as the scandal broke, denies any wrongdoing and says the charges were politically motivated.
The pardon would lift a sentence of 22 years hard labor on a man who once enjoyed great influence in Jordan.
Chalabi moved on to create a CIA-backed Iraqi opposition group, which included Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Continued ...
How many lives does he indeed have, and how much faith can we put in him?