The Pentagon plans to stop funding Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile it hoped might help lead Iraq but whose intelligence reports and motives were questioned elsewhere in Washington, US officials said on Tuesday.
The officials, who asked not to be named, said the Pentagon would stop giving Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress roughly $340,000 a month as of June 30, when the United States plans to give hand over some authority to a still unnamed interim government.
US officials have for weeks said the US government was debating cutting off the INC, saying they had questions about the intelligence it provided as well as about whether Chalabi was motivated more by a desire for power.
The Pentagon, however, defended the INC's information in public and a US defence official echoed that, saying: "They have provided decent information, especially in regards to force protection issues and the whereabouts of folks (Iraqi fugitives)."
INC spokesman Entifadh Qanbar declined comment on the funding or on intelligence the group may have provided, but he said: "I cannot talk about this confidential issue ... but INC personnel are risking their lives every day in Iraq to save American lives."
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