Inside The Takedown

It was the CIA that was responsible for launching the separate leaks probe, which Chalabi's backers see as just the latest in a long series of attempts by the agency to undermine him. Richard Perle, a Bush defense adviser who has met with White House officials to plead Chalabi's case, says, "The CIA has disliked Chalabi for a long time and has concocted a case against him." Chalabi has described the accusation that he gave intelligence to Iran as "nonsense."

If Chalabi did betray U.S. secrets to Iran, it appears he was playing a brazen double game. U.S. commanders in Iraq have said the information Chalabi's organization has passed on to the U.S. since the war began has been helpful. According to a March assessment by a high-ranking military intelligence officer reviewed by TIME, the I.N.C. provided about 50 reports a month last year of "actionable" intelligence, which, among other things, led to the arrest of former leaders of Saddam's regime. The officer stated that the I.N.C. was "directly responsible for saving the lives of numerous" U.S. troops. For his part, Chalabi is attempting to turn the U.S.'s campaign to "marginalize" him into a political coup, telling any Iraqi who will listen that he is clearly no U.S. stooge. Says a senior White House official: "We expect Chalabi to be very politically active on the ground there." That may be the only thing you can count on from Ahmad Chalabi.