http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-12-14T114948Z_01_HO442503_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&related=true&src=cmsBAGHDAD (Reuters) - Ahmad Chalabi has been called many things, few of them flattering: a crook, a Pentagon stooge and a trickster who fooled Americans into invading Iraq with false intelligence and then sold U.S. secrets to Iran.
The urbane and wealthy banker rejects all those barbs, none of which has deterred him from pursuing his political ambitions via a convoluted course worthy of his mathematician's training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Chicago.
Even Chalabi's toughest critics praise him as a master dealmaker who has survived and thrived in treacherous postwar politics despite ranking -- in admittedly unreliable opinion polls -- as one of Iraq's least-liked leaders.
His latest alliances could land him another senior post in the next government after serving in the last one as deputy prime minister and head of a committee steering oil policy.