[18] His father, Abdel Hadi Chalabi, a wealthy grain merchant and member of the Iraqi parliament, became head of the senate when King Abdullah I of Jordan was assassinated.

[4] Living abroad by 1992 in London, and unable to return home for fear of his life, he set up the Iraqi National Congress (INC) with an agenda of regime change for his homeland.

The organization was open to all ethnic and religious groups of Iraq, including Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Sunni and Shia Muslims.

Already a fluent English speaker, he turned his attention to Washington, D.C.[citation needed] In 1995, after preparation and lobbying, he persuaded President Bill Clinton to fund an expedition into northern Iraq to use subterfuge to start an insurgency.

[27] Although Chalabi always maintained the case was a plot to frame him by Baghdad, the issue was revisited when the U.S. State Department raised questions about the accounting practices of the Iraqi National Congress (INC).

[28] Around the same time, the Jordan's Central Bank Governor, Mohammed Said Nabulsi, had referred to Chalabi as "one of the most notorious crooks in the history of the Middle East".

[29] Chalabi headed the executive council of the INC, an umbrella Iraqi opposition group created in 1992 for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

[31] Before the Iraq War (2003), Chalabi enjoyed close political and business relationships with some members of the U.S. government, including some prominent neoconservatives within the Pentagon.

Chalabi was said to have had political contacts within the Project for the New American Century, most notably with Paul Wolfowitz, a student of nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter, and Richard Perle.

[33] Chalabi was flown back to Iraq after the invasion with a force of 700 US-trained militia and was, according to the Washington Times, being paid over $300,000 a month by the US government, with the direct support of Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.

[28] The CIA was largely skeptical of Chalabi and the INC, but information allegedly from his group (most famously from a defector codenamed "Curveball") made its way into intelligence dossiers used by President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to justify an invasion of Iraq.

"Curveball", Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, fed officials hundreds of pages of bogus "firsthand" descriptions of mobile biological weapons factories on wheels and rails.

[34] Secretary of State Colin Powell later used this information in a U.N. presentation trying to garner support for the war, despite warnings from German intelligence that "Curveball" was fabricating claims.

[36] After the war, given the lack of discovery of WMDs, most of the WMD claims of the INC were shown to have been either misleading, exaggerated, or completely made up while INC information about the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein's loyalists and Chalabi's personal enemies were accurate.

Chalabi received advice on media and television presentation techniques from the Irish scriptwriter and commentator Eoghan Harris prior to the invasion of Iraq.

[37][citation needed] During the initial ten days of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, American intelligence discovered signs that Ahmed Chalabi was communicating with the Iranians and sharing details about US troop movements with their government.

The U.S. aimed to prevent the conflict from spreading beyond Iraq's borders, so it was seen as beneficial that the Iranians were aware that U.S. troops had no intention of entering Iran.

[citation needed] Chalabi returned under their aegis and was given a position on the Iraq interim governing council by the Coalition Provisional Authority.

A secret document written in 2002 by the British Overseas and Defence Secretariat reportedly described Chalabi as "a convicted fraudster popular on Capitol Hill.

Beginning 25 January 2004, Chalabi and his close associates promoted the claim that leaders around the world were illegally profiting from the Oil for Food program.

Additionally, Chalabi and other members of the INC were investigated for fraud involving the exchange of Iraqi currency, grand theft of both national and private assets, and many other criminal charges in Iraq.

[42] A major target of the raid was Aras Habib, Chalabi's long-term director of intelligence, who controlled the vast network of agents bankrolled by U.S. funding.

[46] In November 2005, Chalabi traveled to the U.S. and met with top U.S. government officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.

"[51] In April 2008, journalist Melik Kaylan wrote about Chalabi, "Arguably, he has, more than anyone in the country, evolved a detailed sense of what ails Baghdadis and how to fix things.

"[52] After the invasion Chalabi was placed in charge of "de-Ba'athification"—the removal of senior office holders judged to have been close supporters of the deposed Saddam Hussein.

The role fell into disuse, but in early 2010 Chalabi was accused of reviving this dormant post to eliminate his political enemies, especially Sunnis.

The banning of some 500 candidates prior to the general election of 7 March 2010 at the initiative of Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress was reported to have badly damaged previously improving relations between the Shia and Sunni.

A French intelligence official said, "When we hear that some members of the opposition are in touch with Hezbollah or with shady figures like the Iraqi Ahmed Chalabi, of whom we think he is acting on behalf of Iran, then this worries us".

[17][57] Iraqi Press speculated at the time of his death that it came about as a result of being poisoned due to his ongoing efforts to expose regime corruption.

[59] Ahmed Chalabi was laid to rest at the Kadhimiya Holy Shrine, a high honour bestowed by Iraq's influential Shia theocratic establishment.