Shays under fire for meeting with Iraqi

Shays, chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security, defended his meeting last week with Ahmed Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile tainted by the since-discredited claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

"My interest is learning and understanding what is going on in Iraq. I listen to everyone," said Shays, R-4. "I am going to do everything I can to increase my knowledge to do well by our troops and so we can win the war."

Chalabi is deputy prime minister of Iraq and considered a likely candidate to be the next prime minister. Shays met with him and 15 other Iraqis, among them representatives of the Sunni, Shia, Kurd and Turkmen factions.

Westport First Selectwoman Diane Farrell, a Democrat challenging Shays in 2006, said Monday that it was a mistake for the congressman to meet privately with Chalabi.

"The thing I find disturbing is that he [Chalabi] has been a shadowy figure since America entered into this mistaken enterprise," Farrell said. "For Chris [Shays] to have a private meeting with someone under FBI investigation has to leave the public queasy about the sum and substance of the meeting."

Shays defended the meeting, saying it was important to hear from a broad spectrum of Iraqis. He also said that Democrats on his subcommittee had been invited to attend,

"It would have been a circus," he said.

Shays described Chalabi as a controversial and "very slippery" individual who also is extraordinarily knowledgeable, saying he was able to confirm some leads into the United Nations' oil-for-food scandal that Shays said he plans to follow up on.

As to the Democratic criticism, Shays said that most of it is coming from individuals opposed to the war who have not bothered to go to Iraq or speak with Iraqis.

"Diane Farrell doesn't know the first thing about what is going on in Iraq. I don't think she has been there or met with Sunni, Shia or Kurds. For her to start expressing an opinion just blows me away," Shays said.

Several Democrats in Congress called last week for Chalabi to be brought before the FBI and Senate and House intelligence committees. They want Chalabi to answer charges that, as an Iraqi exile before the war, he deliberately misled the Bush administration about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that he leaked U.S. secrets to Iran.

"I don't know if these allegations are true. But if they are, Mr. Chalabi has betrayed U.S. interests, caused incalculable damage to our national security and contributed to the death of more than 2,000 of our troops," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., in a letter to Shays.

Waxman, ranking member of the national security subcommittee, urged Shays to bring Chalabi before a public hearing under oath.

Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.; and Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., said last week that Chalabi should be meeting with FBI investigators rather than Republican officials.

Last year, U.S. forces raided Chalabi's Baghdad office after he was accused of giving U.S. intelligence information to Iran. FBI Assistant Director John Miller said in a prepared statement that there is an open, and active, investigation of whether Chalabi passed U.S. classified information to Iran.

Chalabi has denied the charges.

As to advising the Bush administration that Saddam had arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, Chalabi is unapologetic.

"We are sorry for every American life that was lost in Iraq," he said recently. "As for deliberately misleading, this is an urban myth."

Chalabi delivered a speech last week at the American Enterprise Institute in which he expressed optimism over Iraq's future, but insisted that U.S. troops should remain for now. He also met last week with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and met Monday with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.