Charges Against Chalabi

It's said that having the right enemies can be a sign of good character, and if that is so, it's a positive sign of Iraqi democratic leader Ahmad Chalabi's character that he has so many.

There were his rivals in the Jordanian banking industry who accused him of bank fraud in Jordan more than a decade ago. They were threatened by his rising influence and intimidated by Jordan's powerful neighbor, Saddam Hussein. He was tried there before a military tribunal of the sort the left normally protests against but didn't in Mr. Chalabi's case.

There are the Saudis and the Jordanians and their clients at the Central Intelligence Agency, who don't like him because he is a Shiite and because he is a democrat and because they cannot control him. There are some on the American left who don't like him because he laid the groundwork for the liberation of Iraq, which they opposed. Those who profited from corruption under the United Nations oil-for-food program are afraid of him because he wants an honest and far-reaching investigation. And there are Iraqis who are his competitors in the effort to shape the politics of a new Iraq.

Now comes Judge Zuhair Maliki, who graduated law school under Saddam Hussein's regime, was installed by American envoy L. Paul Bremer III as chief investigative judge in Iraq, and has now issued a warrant for Mr. Chalabi's arrest. Judge Maliki was quoted by the Associated Press yesterday as saying of Mr. Chalabi and his nephew,"They should be arrested and then questioned and then we will evaluate the evidence, and then if there is enough evidence, they will be sent to trial." This seems backward. It would make more sense to evaluate the evidence and see if there is enough of it before issuing an arrest warrant, not afterward.

Mr. Chalabi has said he will return to Iraq to face the currency forgery charges, which he says are baseless. But our own informed estimate is that he will want to clear his name in a more credible forum than Judge Maliki's court. In respect of the anonymous charges from American officials that Mr. Chalabi disclosed American secrets to Iran, Mr. Chalabi has offered to come to Congress for an open airing of whatever evidence the American government has against him. Congress has not yet moved to provide this forum.

The American federal court system, for all the concern about oversized jury verdicts, class actions, and the need for tort reform, however, is still the international standard when it comes to ferreting out facts and distinguishing them from innuendoes. So we wouldn't be at all surprised if Mr. Chalabi turns to an American court — perhaps even here in New York, the press and diplomatic capital of the world — to help get the facts out about his enemies and their attempt to smear him. In the end, the court that matters for Mr. Chalabi will be the court of public opinion in Iraq. But for all of us who were and continue to be inspired by Mr. Chalabi in the cause of Iraqi freedom, the American legal system may be useful in clarifying the issues and the enemies he now confronts. Meantime he can take comfort in the fact that he is by no means the first advocate of democracy to be threatened with jail.