# Ahmed Chalabi Ahmed Chalabi (1944–2015) was an Iraqi exile, banker, and politician who founded the Iraqi National Congress and became Washington's favored go-between for regime change before the [[Iraq War]]. ## The Manufactured Case Backed by neoconservatives including [[Paul Wolfowitz]], Chalabi's INC supplied a stream of defectors and "evidence" — much of it later judged fabricated — that helped build the public case for [[Weapons of Mass Destruction]] in Iraq. His sources fed both US intelligence and credulous reporting, notably by [[Judith Miller]] in the [[New York Times]] (see the [[Iraq WMD Intelligence Failure]]). After the invasion he held senior posts in the new Iraqi government, but his American patrons soured on him amid accusations he had passed secrets to Iran. He embodies how an outside actor with an agenda can shape a superpower's path to war. *See also: [[Iraqi History Hub]], [[Iraq War]], [[Iraq WMD Intelligence Failure]], [[Paul Wolfowitz]]*