Iraqi official who gave U.S. WMD intel found dead

By Anna Giaritelli, Anna Giaritelli

Published December 20, 2015

Ahmed Chalabi, an exiled Iraqi politician who fed the Bush administration information about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction, reportedly died of a heart attack Tuesday.

The 71-year-old man was found dead in his Baghdad home by his driver, according to Iraqi state media.

Chalabi, a lifetime banker, was a close friend of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney during his time on the Iraqi National Congress, and became infamous for influencing the administration's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. The invasion failed to uncover any nuclear weapons as he had purported, but it did not destroy his reputation.

The Bush administration flew Chalabi back to his home country despite his feeding them intelligence that was later found to be incorrect. Whether he knew his information was untrue or told American officials in order to make personal gains from the war is unknown.