IRAQ: US troops and Iraqi police raided the home and party offices of Governing Council member Mr Ahmad Chalabi yesterday, taking computers and private files from the man once considered Washington's top Iraq ally.
An Iraqi judge, Mr Hassan Muathin, said the raid was carried out under an arrest warrant for several men wanted for stealing state-owned vehicles, but Mr Chalabi accused US-led authorities running Iraq of a "targeted attack" against him.
Squads of soldiers and police sealed off the neighbourhood around the headquarters of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and a nearby house used by Mr Chalabi, removing computers, files, a copy of the Koran and other personal items, Mr Chalabi said.
"I was asleep, I opened the door and police came into my home carrying pistols," a clearly furious Mr Chalabi told reporters.
"They went through the rooms and I told them to get out, but they said they were slaves under orders."
No one was arrested in the raid, which occurred only two days after US officials said the Pentagon had cut off about $340,000 a month in funding to the INC - payments that were made in part for intelligence gathered by the party.
Mr Chalabi, a former exile who returned to Iraq after Saddam Hussein's overthrow and was viewed by some in Washington as a possible leader, said he believed the raid had been carried out because of a stand-off with US authorities.
"Let my people go. Let my people be free. It is time for the Iraqi people to run their affairs," he said. He accused Iraq's Interior Minister, a former member of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, of being behind the "spurious warrant".
US Deputy Defence Secretary Mr Paul Wolfowitz said the Pentagon's decision to cut off funding was made in the light of the planned handover of power to Iraqis.
"We felt it was no longer appropriate for us to continue funding in that fashion," Mr Wolfowitz told a US Senate hearing.
US officials have said they had doubts about the intelligence the INC provided and about whether Mr Chalabi was motivated chiefly by a desire for power.
Mr Chalabi, who lived abroad in exile for more than four decades, was convicted in absentia of bank fraud in 1992 by a military court in Jordan, where he had founded a bank that failed. He says the charges were politically motivated.