Iraqi Doctor, Once on C.I.A.'s Payroll, Fights to Stay in U.S.
April 11, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/iraq-us-doctor.html
Much of the questioning during the morning session today focused on Dr. Ali’s relationship with his cousin, Aras, whom American officials maintained in documents had a connection with Iranian intelligence agents and was, in part, the basis for the government’s decision to hold him as a security threat. One F.B.I. counterintelligence agent, John Peterson, acknowledged under cross-examination this morning that the relationship may have meant little.
**Signs evident U.S. is changing Iraq policy **
uploaded 24 Feb 2001
UPI
Aras Kareem – a man previously considered so dangerous in U.S.
intelligence circles that his cousin, Ali Karim, who sought asylum was
detained in a California jail in part because of his association with him –
arrived last week in Washington for a series of meetings with the Defense
Security Cooperation Agency on tactical training.
“If the U.S. government is conferring with [Aras Kareem] it is certainly a
change in view from when they imprisoned poor Dr. Ali because he was his
cousin,” said former director of central intelligence James Woolsey, who was
as lead attorney instrumental in helping Ali Karim and other Iraqis from the
CIA operation attain freedom.
But Kareem’s Pentagon meetings also show** the U.S. government has begun
implementing a plan to use the much-maligned INC in a strategy to foment
revolution in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq**.
Warren Marik, the CIA case officer assigned to the INC between 1993 and
1996 <snip> …said it was in this period that Kareem increasingly became alienated from CIA operatives in the region. Eventually, [the CIA] …used Kareem’s open meetings with Iranian officials against him – tarring him as
someone too close to the Mullahs in Tehran.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Iran Report
5 November 2001, Volume 4, Number 42
“Al-Watan al-Arabi” reported on 26 October that the Jordanian leadership suspects that Tehran, Ankara, and Washington are up to something involving Iraq and Afghanistan, but that this started well before the current crisis in the region. The daily described a November 2000 meeting in Berlin that was attended by mid-level officials from Washington, Tehran, Islamabad, Ankara, and Moscow. Most of the Iranian participants came from the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps’ intelligence unit.
The Iraqi aspect of these discussions – as well as separate Iran-U.S. discussions – focused on the future role of the Tehran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and its chairman, Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim. Tehran called on Washington to cease its support for the Iraqi National Congress under Ahmad Chalabi. Washington supposedly responded to this request positively, and Mohammad Hadi and Ahmad al-Bayyati of the SCIRI have been in close contact with the Americans. “Al-Watan al-Arabi” reported that Washington at the time suggested a 44-year old Shia Kurd named Aras Karim as an opposition leader that all sides might accept
Copyright © 2002. RFE/RL
**Chalabi’s forces enter Baghdad **
Sharon Behn and Paul Martin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES - Published April 17, 2003
“I cannot wait to find the grave of my first cousin, who Saddam’s men murdered in public 13 years ago,” declared an emotional Aras Kareem, leader of the about 700-strong Free Iraqi Forces.
**THE POWER-BROKERS **
Sunday Herald - 13 April 2003
Other Iraqis involved in a future government – at the behest of Wolfowitz – include INC members Salem Chalabi (Chalabi’s nephew) and Aras Habib. Habib’s cousin, Dr Ali Yassin Karim, a former medic with the CIA, was nearly kicked out of the agency but was saved by the CIA’s James Woolsey.
’Nazi’ files incriminate top Iraqis
THE SUNDAY TIMES (London)
April 20, 2003
Marie Colvin, Baghdad
Chalabi’s discovery of the files followed work by an underground network
begun in 2000 and called the Information Collection Program, run by Aras
Karim. The capture of the archives is part of what Chalabi believes must be
Iraq’s next step: de-Ba’athification, which he likens to the denazification
of Germany after the second world war.
[In denial: the big cards in Saddam’s pack](In denial: the big cards in Saddam’s pack)
*Marie Colvin, Baghdad
May 04, 2003 *
Aras Karim, head of the INC’s effort to capture leading members of Saddam’s ruling Ba’ath party, was exasperated. He had brought in al-Tikriti but gained little information that would help in his quest for Saddam.
Chronicle of a war foretold: on the move with Ahmad Chalabi, the man who would be king
Harper’s Magazine, July, 2003 by Charles Glass
THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2003,
NORTHERN IRAQ VIA TEHERAN, IRAN
Chalabi’s chief of operations, a young Kurd named Aras Karim, tells us what the border protocol will be.
INC Intel Program
*From: *Laurie Mylroie **
Subject: INC Intel Program, NY Sun
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 15:58:15 -0800
The New York Sun March 1, 2004, p. 1
Since December, the ICP is turning into what may be the intelligence service for a sovereign Iraq, tentatively being dubbed either the Iraqi Military Intelligence Request or the Iraqi Security Service. Under the leadership of longtime INC spy chief, Aras Habib Karem, the organization has expanded its ranks to include intelligence operatives from the two major Kurdish parties, the INA and Sciri. Mr. Karem is an acting deputy at the Ministry of Interior, but his post has yet to be approved by L. Paul Bremer. In its intelligence service capacity, the ICP has screened applicants to the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, a 4,000-strong Iraqi unit trained by the 1st Armored Division that has led to the disruption of terror cells. The Iraqi commander of the new battalion,Ya’arub al-Hashimi, was a Major under the INC’s old armed militia. The CIA station in Baghdad this month has started talks with the INC on taking over responsibility for the program from the DIA, according to American and ICP officials. One ICP official told the Sun last week, “The CIA has expressed an interest in the program and taking it over. We are now discussing it.”
**Crime and Politics **
Why did U.S. and Iraqi forces raid Ahmad Chalabi’s home? The real reason was a widening trail of corruption that has little to do with his political agenda
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 5:58 p.m. ET May 20, 2004
[The Central Criminal Court of Iraq] …is also investigating whether INC officials, including Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Habib, misused the Baath Party files they seized upon being helped into Iraq early by the U.S. military. Chalabi ultimately became head of the De-Baathification Committee, and U.S. officials believe that some Iraqis have been threatened with blackmail by being identified as Baath Party members if they declined to do the INC’s bidding, the CPA official said. “Just recently we learned of a situation where a senior official in the Ministry of Science and Technology refused to sign off on a contract brought in by the INC. He felt it was overpriced or that there was something else wrong with it. Because he refused, the minister and the De-Baathification Committee included his name on the list [of Baath Party] members, and they sent a letter saying you’re a Baathist and you’ll be eliminated.” The official also said about 1 billion dinars allocated for de-Baathification has mysteriously disappeared.
