While seeking information regarding the Iraqi Interior ministry's...

[harlinchi]

...leadership, suspecting that Chalabi had some connection to the recent revelation about their secret facilities, I, of course, found that Chalabi leads the (duh!) oil ministry. I also found there was some bad blood between Chalabi and the Ministries of Defense and Interior. I wonder if the recent revelations are not some sort of attempt by Chalabi to usurp power from the Interior Ministry by discrediting the current leadership in the eyes of the world, and more importantly to the GOP, in the eyes of the US public?

I don't recall hearing anything about such a rift, which apparently manifested itself in Jan. 2005. I never saw anything like this:

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/
2005/January/focusoniraq_January178.xml§ion=focusoniraq

(excerpt from the article)

Iraq’s interior minister says no arrest warrant for Chalabi
(AFP)

22 January 2005


BAGHDAD - Iraq’s Interior Minister Falah al-Naquib said on Saturday there was no arrest warrant for Ahmed Chalabi after the country’s defense minister warned the maverick politician would be jailed for slandering the government.

...The denial of a warrant came after Defense Minister Hazem al-Shaalan said the Baghdad government would shortly arrest one-time Pentagon favourite Chalabi for staining his ministry’s reputation.

“We will arrest him and hand him to Interpol... He sought to tarnish (the image) of the defense ministry and... the reputation of the defense minister,” Shaalan told Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television late Friday.

...In a twist that is likely to raise a few eyebrows in Washington, Iraq's great political survivor Ahmad Chalabi - first the darling and then the scapegoat of the Bush Administration - will take the hotly-contested post of Oil Minister on an interim basis. Mr Chalabi, who is a Shia Muslim, is also one of the four deputy Prime Ministers.


(end of excerpt)
While I know nothing of the source, I also know nothing stuck in my memory from reports in the US.

I suspect Chalabi's seeming fall from grace was manipulated to his advantage and to the advantage of those running the war. I suspect he never actually fell from grace; his appearing to have fallen served the interests of the war-mongers, by seeming to provide some distance between Chalabi and the US officials who listened to him, at a time when his false intelligence was coming to light. I suspect he's here right now coordinating his story with those who need story coordination. I bet if one were to know the folks with whom Chalabi met recently in this country and is meeting right now, he would find those most likely implicated in pre-war intelligence manipulation.

[harlinchi]

1. Chalabi and Neocons - Next year in Baghdad - Newsweek

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10073674/site/newsweek/

(excerpt)


The onetime Iraqi exile leader, who has a fair chance of completing a stunning political comeback by being elected Iraq’s next prime minister in December, was unrepentant about his role in fomenting the Iraq war at a gathering of longtime friends and supporters in Washington on Tuesday night. In a speech, Chalabi blasted his many critics for “rewriting history” and “repeating lies to justify positions that are no longer tenable.” Alluding to accusations (borne out by a Senate investigation) that his Iraqi National Congress deliberately fed false intelligence to Bush administration hawks, he urged people “to forget … the rumors and innuendo” that were spread about him.


I'd say he's resurrected his image!