Still controversial Chalabi meets top US officials - Yahoo! News

Still controversial Chalabi meets top US officials - Yahoo! News: "Wed Nov 9, 8:23 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraqi deputy prime minister Ahmad Chalabi was welcomed on Wednesday by a U.S. administration that once shunned him, sparking denunciations by critics who blame him for discredited pre-war intelligence.

A Bush administration favorite who fell from favor after the 2003 invasion of
Iraq, Chalabi achieved a kind of political rehabilitation on a high-profile Washington visit that included meetings with Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser
Stephen Hadley.

He is due to meet Vice President
Dick Cheney on Thursday. Sessions with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Treasury Secretary
John Snow are set for next week.

Chalabi pushed for the visit ahead of Iraqi elections next month. It has fueled a growing U.S. debate over
President George W. Bush's conduct of the Iraq war.

While the visit seems to come at an inopportune time for Bush, U.S. officials insisted they were treating Chalabi just like any other Iraqi elected leader and were eager not to influence the December 15 elections.

Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, also in Washington this week, saw Rice on Tuesday.

Democratic senators and congressmen insisted Chalabi be held accountable for faulty intelligence that justified a war that has killed more than 2,000 Americans.

They demanded to know why he was meeting top officials after charges he had passed U.S. secrets to
Iran -- a U.S. adversary -- and urged congressional intelligence committees to subpoena Chalabi for testimony."