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Ahmad Chalabi (born Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi on October 30, 1944, in Baghdad, Iraq; died November 3, 2015) was an influential Iraqi mathematician, businessman, politician, and dissident known primarily for his leadership of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an exile opposition group founded in 1992 aiming to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Coming from a wealthy Shia Muslim banking family of Iraqi Arab ethnicity, he was exiled as a child following the 1958 Iraqi Revolution. Chalabi earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the American University of Beirut, a Master of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1969. He founded Petra Bank in Jordan in 1977, which collapsed in 1989 amid allegations of fraud, leading to his conviction in absentia for embezzlement and a 22-year prison sentence he denied.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Chalabi was a key advocate for regime change in Iraq. He lobbied extensively in the United States, contributing to the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which established regime change as U.S. policy. He was a principal source of disputed pre-war intelligence alleging Iraqi ties to weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and al-Qaeda; these claims were later discredited and criticized for misleading the rationale for the 2003 Iraq War. After the invasion, Chalabi held several government positions, including membership and presidency of the Iraqi Governing Council in 2003, Deputy Prime Minister in 2005, and membership in the Iraqi Parliament. His career was marked by controversies, including accusations of fabricating intelligence and allegations that he acted as an Iranian double agent. In 2004, Iraqi forces raided his INC headquarters on espionage charges.
Chalabi remained a prominent Shia figure in Iraqi politics until his death from a heart attack in Baghdad. Married with children, his legacy is deeply divisive: hailed by some as a champion of Iraqi democracy, while others view him as a convicted fraudster and manipulator whose actions exacerbated sectarian tensions and influenced flawed U.S. policy toward Iraq, making him a polarizing figure in Iraqi politics and international relations.