Associated Press

February 12, 2003, Wednesday

SECTION: International News

LENGTH: 926 words

HEADLINE: In Kurdish north, lawsuits pile up against potential successor to Saddam

BYLINE: By BORZOU DARAGAHI, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: SALAHUDDIN, Iraq

BODY:
Kurds working in this mountaintop town are reluctant to support the man often mentioned as a successor to Saddam Hussein for one simple reason: They say he owes them money.

Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, has returned from exile to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq ahead of a potential U.S.-led military attack - only to face hundreds of lawsuits for unpaid debts from the group's last guerrilla campaign in the 1990s.

"He was here for a while and he owes a lot of people a lot of money," said Khaled Ismail Amad, a former driver for the congress who says he's owed $6,250.

The absence of a clear, universally accepted alternative to Saddam has complicated efforts to devise a plan for how to govern Iraq after a regime change in Baghdad .

Although Chalabi enjoys support in the U.S. Congress, his relations with successive American administrations have been rockier, reflecting doubts, especially in the U.S. State Department, about his effectiveness as a national leader.

Most of the cases against Chalabi are pending at a court in Irbil , 25 miles southwest of Salahuddin, according to government officials and Govand Baban, an attorney who filed most of the cases. Baban estimated the total damages at about $6 million.

Zaab Sethna, a spokesman for Chalabi, rejected the charges and said the congress has paid all of its debts.

"The cases are without merit, and we have documents to prove it," he said. "We have signed receipts, and all outstanding bills and invoices are settled."

Those who claim Chalabi owes them money also say they have documents. Salem Pirma, a gas station owner, says Chalabi's group owes his family $4,625 for oil and gasoline.

"At first they paid and they were good customers," he said. "Then they stopped paying."

The Salahuddin court cases are not the first time Chalabi has faced an accusation of financial impropriety. Both the State Department and the CIA have questioned the congress' accounting practices.

In Amman , Jordan , Chalabi was sentenced in absentia to 22 years of hard labor after a bank he ran collapsed in 1990 with about $300 million in missing deposits. Chalabi left the country before the case went to trial.

Sethna said that case came about on Saddam's orders to the late King Hussein. "King Hussein ... apologized to Dr. Chalabi," he said. "He said it was a big mistake."

Sethna says all the financial accusations against Chalabi are politically inspired. "It's a constant thing that people try to use these allegations of misconduct rather than argue against someone's political views," he said.

But almost all those making claims against Chalabi say they admired him and his views.

Baban, a well-to-do lawyer who sports a garish blue-green felt sports jacket and a bright yellow and blue tie, calls himself an Iraqi and Kurdish patriot. He's legal consultant for the weekly Hawlati, an independent and lively newspaper.

Baban suggested Chalabi's conduct was unbecoming of a future leader of Iraq .

"The person who will be the leader of Iraq has to have ethics," he says. "Ahmad Chalabi's group abused people."

Chalabi crossed the Iranian border last week and came to this city for the first time since 1996, when the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party permitted Baghdad's forces to enter the region and drive out their rivals, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. In the process, Saddam attacked the Iraqi National Congress, and sent its forces scurrying into exile.

At its peak, the congress had a headquarters, a radio station and a small army based in northern Iraq . The CIA poured millions of dollars to finance all opposition activities. But a March 1995 congress-led offensive to overthrow Saddam was crushed by the Iraqi army and led to hundreds of deaths.

Chalabi blamed the CIA for pulling air support. Amid the anti-Saddam activities, a civil war erupted between the two main Kurdish parties.

The United States - which had kept a significant intelligence and military presence in the autonomous Kurdish area established following the 1991 Gulf War - pulled up stakes and left.

Chalabi did too. Except for a brief visit in 1998, he stayed off Iraqi soil for seven years.

"It's not like we could come back and address these issues," said Sethna, who is traveling with Chalabi and a group of other prominent Iraqi political figures.

But while the rival Kurdish factions appear to have laid aside their differences ahead of a planned opposition meeting, the drivers, guards, shopkeepers and gas stations owners who say Chalabi owes them money said his visit reawakened their bitterness.

"They kept saying not today, tomorrow. Not tomorrow, the day after tomorrow," said Hadisham Sadine Navkorky, a former guard for the congress who says he's owed $2,250. "If he were an honorable person, he would pay me."

Sethna blames the lawsuits partly on the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which "riled up" sentiment against the congress after the group's departure. When the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the congress had friendly relations, there were numerous joint projects. "The KDP passed off the expenses on us after we left," he said.

Amad, the driver to whom the congress allegedly owes money, concedes his debt of $6,250 is relatively small. But he said so much money means a lot to an average Kurd, who makes about $60 a month. He had to sell his truck and is now relegated to peddling fruit on the street.

"I have gone into debt because of him," he said. "It turned my life inside out."