New York Sun May 21, 2004 Editorial How To Lose the Peace, II "How To Lose The Peace" was the headline of our May 23, 2003, editorial reporting on a raid by heavily armed American soldiers on the headquarters of the Iraqi National Congress in Baghdad. When our Adam Daifallah tried to explain to the American GIs that the people they were handcuffing were pro-American, one soldier remarked, "Well, they won't be pro-American anymore, I guess." That editorial, calling the raid "unbelievably boneheaded," concluded, "The sooner America ceases to be an occupier in Iraq and starts to be a support for the new Iraqi government, the less likely it is that there will be another disaster like last night's raid on the most pro-American faction in the country."
That editorial made its way to the Pentagon and resulted in an official apology to the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmad Chalabi, from General Sanchez. Now, almost a year later, we're back to square one. Yesterday, Mr. Chalabi's house and Iraqi National Congress offices were raided by a team that included American personnel. They shot a bullet into the forehead of a photo of Mr. Chalabi, and they seized his personal Koran. A spokesman for the American occupying authority, Dan Senor, said yesterday, "to my knowledge, Mr. Chalabi is not actually being pursued for anything. And I don't think the INC is, either." Mr. Senor referred questions about the raid to "the Iraqi police." He said, "My understanding is they are the ones who seized any documents. It was an Iraqi-led investigation, it was an Iraqi-led raid." Mr. Chalabi's spokesman, Entifadh Qanbar, however, told our Eli Lake that the raid included CIA and FBI personnel. Also visited by American authorities yesterday was the home in Iraq of a professor at Brandeis University, Kanan Makiya, who works closely with the Iraqi National Congress. If Mr. Senor is correct that Mr. Chalabi "is not actually being pursued for anything," then America owes him an apology for taking his Koran and shooting his photograph in the head. Blaming this on the "Iraqi police" is ridiculous when responsibility for the security situation, as for so much else in postwar Iraq, still rests with the American regent, L. Paul Bremer. If the spokesman for the occupation authority is incorrect--that is, if Mr. Chalabi is, in fact, the target of this investigation--then the Bush administration owes the American public a look at the charges and Mr. Chalabi the chance to defend himself in a venue with due process (his home was raided without a warrant from anyone). This is a situation in which a lot more people than Mr. Chalabi himself deserve an explanation from the Bush administration as to what, if anything, it has on him. If it involves Iran, the administration will have to explain why Mr. Chalabi's dealings with Iran are worse than their own negotiations in Geneva or worse than those of other Iraqi factions with which America regularly does business. At some point the administration will have to permit Mr. Chalabi to confront his accuser. The last time Mr. Chalabi was accused of malfeasance was in Jordan in 1992, following the Gulf War, in which Mr. Chalabi had sided with America and the Jordanian regime with Saddam. The only time those charges, which involved Petra Bank, were brought before a legitimate Western court, which happened in Hong Kong in 1993, the Jordanian takeover of the bank was found to be illegal. There's a tendency by those new to the Iraq story to forget that Messrs. Chalabi and Makiya risked their lives for many years while opposing the regime of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Makiya documented Saddam's crimes in 1989 in a landmark book, "Republic of Fear," and he watched on television with Mr. Bush at the White House as Saddam's statue was toppled in Baghdad. Mr. Chalabi spent years in the wilderness building support for the liberation of his country. In March of 1995, Mr. Chalabi led an attack on Saddam's forces in Northern Iraq. In April 1996, he met with Ambassador Albright at the United Nations, hoping that President Clinton's envoy at Turtle Bay would back the campaign to free Iraq and prevent Saddam from using profits from the oil-for-food agreement to strengthen his dictatorship. His testimony on Capitol Hill was crucial to securing the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. It is a hopeful sign that America is committed to ending the occupation of Iraq on June 30. In doing so it has adopted a policy goal that Mr. Chalabi has stood by through thick and thin. The sooner America gets out, the less likely is another disaster like yesterday's raid.
