Four months ago, Ahmad Chalabi sat with first lady Laura Bush during President Bush's State of the Union address. At the time, the Iraqi banker-politician enjoyed the support of some of the Pentagon's highest ranking civilian officials.
Today, Chalabi's defenders are more likely to be found in Iran, the country that Bush famously described as part of the "axis of evil."
The government and the online press in Iran are coming to the defense of Chalabi, a Shiite Muslim, whose Baghdad headquarters were raided by U.S. troops last week. Several of Chalabi's associates have been charged with providing U.S. intelligence information to Iran.
The Islamic Republic News Agency called the espionage allegations "baseless." The charge, said the Mehr News Agency in Tehran, is a "disinformation ploy which will fall flat."
The Islamic online media see the repudiation of Chalabi as the Bush administration's latest maneuver to preserve its power in Iraq -- at the expense of the Shiite majority.
"The events in Iraq in recent weeks indicate that the U.S. is determined to prolong its occupation of the country," said the Mehr News Agency report.
