No Bush-Chalabi meeting: White House

[phk]

No Bush-Chalabi meeting: White House
Published: 11/5/2005
   
MAR DEL PLATA - Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi will not meet with US President George W. Bush during a trip to Washington late this month, the White House said Saturday.

"As campaigns for the December 15 elections are now underway, the president will not be meeting with visiting Iraqi candidates until the election is over," said Fred Jones, spokesman for Bush's national security council.

Chalabi, who assumed a top post in Iraq's new government after earlier falling from grace in the United States, will meet with US Treasury Secretary John Snow and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, he said.

"Visiting officials will of course meet with their appropriate counterparts," Jones said as Bush attended the 34-nation Summit of the Americas here ahead of stops in Brazil and Panama.

US officials say Chalabi is a "viable" candidate for prime minister of Iraq in the upcoming elections. It was not clear whether he would meet with national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

Chalabi, who vehemently opposed the regime of Saddam Hussein from exile, was once a Pentagon favorite who provided volunteers for the embryo of an Iraqi force during the 2003 US-led invasion.

But he fell out of US favor amid charges last year that he traded US intelligence to Iran. He also faces a jail sentence handed down in absentia by a Jordanian court for embezzling bank funds in 1992.

Chalabi bounced back as a faction leader in the United Iraqi Alliance, the biggest bloc in the Iraqi assembly elected in January. In addition to serving as deputy prime minister, he has temporarily taken over the key oil portfolio.

11/05/2005 16:25 GM