Ahmad Chalabi, Iraqi Governor and...mathematician?

Factual Questions
1

I have heard it said that Chalabi had

MR0634213 (83e:16022) Chalabi, Ahmad; Khuri, Soumaya Makdissi Pure
submodules of injective modules. Rend. Istit. Mat. Univ. Trieste 12
(1980), no. 1-2, 15–19. (Reviewer: Annie Page) 16A52

MR0360669 (50 #13116) Chalabi, Ahmad The Jacobson radical of a group
algebra under field extensions in characteristic p. Tamkang J. Math. 5
(1974), no. 1, 103–106. (Reviewer: S. B. Conlon) 16A26

MR0325739 (48 #4085) Chalabi, Ahmad Modules over group algebras and
their application in the study of semi-simplicity. Math. Ann. 201
(1973), 57–63. (Reviewer: S. B. Conlon) 20C05

2

Er. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

Anyway, I heard somewhere or another that Ahmad Chalabi (the Iraq guy) has a PhD in number theory. I searched sci.math, and the results were inconclusive: a poster there dug up the three papers I mention in the OP, but those are more algebra than number theory.

So I’m curious now, and I’d like the Straight Dope. Did the now-famous Ahmad Chalabi write those, or was it some other Ahmad Chalabi?

3

Apparently it’s the same Chalabi.

Here is a short biography. The bio notes that he was a math professor at American University in Beirut until 1977. It also says that he was educated at Chicago University [sic] and MIT.

The UMI ProQuest Dissertation Database has the following entry:

The dissertation topic goes along with the articles quoted, so…

4

Straight Dope 1, Ignorance 0. Thank you sunfish.

5

sunfish has provided a link to the verification. Interestingly enough, the AMS doesn’t list any of those articles (or any others by Ahmad Chalabi) on MathSciNet.

On the other hand, so what if he has an advanced degree in mathematics? So did Ted Kaczynski. So does Art Garfunkel (from Columbia, no less). Yes, mathematicians do have other interactions with humans.

6

Can I propose Art Garfunkel to head up the Iraqi Interim Government ?

7

Sun Yat-sen earned a medical degree. He later found time away from his practice to lead the rebellion that toppled the Qing Dynasty and lead the way towards the Chinese Civil War and the eventual rise of Mao Zedong.

So not all political leaders are devoid of higher education, nor were they all born to politics. I know you can find plenty of other examples on this theme.

8

Chalabi subtracted a lot of money from the Jordanian banking system BBC NEWS | Business | Chalabi's chequered finances , multipled rumours about WMDs to the CIA before the war http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact , and is adding to Iraq’s woes by having zero internal support despite being pushed on the iraqi people. Yup that would make him a mathematician. :wink:

9

Larry Gonick has a math degree from Harvard. And he wrote and illustrated The Cartoon History of the Universe, which has a lot of stuff on what is present-day Iraq. He arguably knows more about the history of the region than most other candidates. Maybe he should run the interim government. But I’ll bet you couldn’t get him to do it.

10

Yeah he was a professor of mathematics. In this interview Chalabi says so, whilst being quizzed about his conviction for embezzling the Petra bank of over 150 million dollars.

:smiley: scm101 :smiley: