Portrait of Ahmed Chalabi

Birthday profile

Ahmed Chalabi

Ahmed Chalabi, Iraqi businessman and politician (died 2015)

Born
October 30, 1944
Died
November 3, 2015
Zodiac sign
Scorpio
Birth year
1944

About Ahmed Chalabi

Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi (Arabic: أحمد عبد الهادي الجلبي;‎ 30 October 1945 – 3 November 2015) was an Iraqi politician and founder of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) who served as the President of the Governing Council of Iraq (37th Prime Minister of Iraq) and a Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq under Ibrahim al-Jaafari. He is believed to have been an Iranian agent. Chalabi was interim Minister of Oil in Iraq in April–May 2005 and December 2005 – January 2006 and Deputy Prime Minister from May 2005 to May 2006. Chalabi failed to win a seat in parliament in the December 2005 elections, and when the new Iraqi cabinet was announced in May 2006, he was not given a post. Once dubbed the "George Washington of Iraq" by American supporters, he was initially a CIA-backed operative, who later fell out of favor, with U.S. Special Forces raiding his private residence in Baghdad only one year after the invasion of Iraq. He later came under investigation by several U.S. government agencies after switching his allegiances to become an instrument of pro-Iranian influence in Iraqi politics. In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), with the assistance of lobbying powerhouse BKSH & Associates, provided a major portion of the information on which the Office of Special Plans based its condemnation of the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, including reports of weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Most, if not all, of this information has turned out to be false and Chalabi has been called a fabricator. Along with this, Chalabi also subsequently boasted, in an interview with the British Sunday Telegraph, about the impact that their faulty intelligence had on American policy. These factors led to a falling-out between him and the U.S. government. Furthermore, Chalabi was found guilty of bank fraud in the Petra Bank scandal in Jordan and he was sentenced to 22 years imprisonment in absentia. In 2008, Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance Director Jay Garner stated that he believed Chalabi was an Iranian agent. In January 2012, a French intelligence official stated that he believed Chalabi to be "acting on behalf of Iran". The conference created INC - and made Mr Chalabi its president". In 1977, he founded the Petra Bank in Jordan with Crown Prince Hassan, the King's brother.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Ahmed Chalabi was born

Ahmed Chalabi was born in 1944. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1944

  • #1 song"Swinging on a Star" – Bing Crosby
  • Top movieGoing My Way
  • Best-selling bookStrange Fruit – Lillian Smith

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentGreen Bay Packers win NFL Championship
  • Top headlineD-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6
  • Technology milestoneHarvard Mark I computer begins operations
  • Defining fadBobby socks
  • Notable inventionKidney dialysis machine
  • World population2.39 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population138.4M

1944 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Ahmed Chalabi's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19442026
Gas$0.21$3.45/gal
Average home$5,800$435,000
Average income$4,200$67,500
Minimum wage$0.30$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.27$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population138.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.