April 22 (Bloomberg) -- Ahmad Chalabi is a con man with a cat's nine lives. That's the portrait of the Iraqi power broker and would-be leader painted by journalist Aram Roston's investigative biography, ``The Man Who Pushed America to War.''

In Roston's view, the most formative experience of Chalabi's early life was the 1958 coup that overthrew Iraq's royal family. He says that while the rest of the country was celebrating, the 13-year-old Chalabi and his wealthy family were in hiding. Though they were able to move to London with much of their wealth, this exile from their cocooned existence made a lasting mark, in the author's view.

Roston presents a picture of persistent deceit and shady business practices. Charges of mismanagement and fraud followed Chalabi's takeover of the family business. After the failure of the Petra Bank in Jordan, Roston says that he literally fled into the night and never returned to face an indictment against him.

Later Chalabi blamed the collapse of Petra on a Jordanian scheme that he says had targeted him for heading the Iraqi resistance to Saddam Hussein. It was that image, buoyed by his charm, which convinced neoconservatives like Richard Perle and Danielle Pletka he could help realize their fantasies of a democratic Middle East.

It's also why Roston says Chalabi was so conveniently placed to introduce false stories about Saddam's WMDs -- particularly the whopper about mobile labs manufacturing chemical weapons -- and to sucker gullible journalists like Judith Miller and Vanity Fair's David Rose (who at least admits he was taken in).

Analyze This

But Roston never makes clear what motivates Chalabi. Revenge for the lost paradise of his youth? A need for power and recognition? A reporter isn't required to psychoanalyze his subject, but with more than 300 pages focused on one character, he needs a consistent back story, and Roston hasn't found one.

More troubling is Roston's use of anonymous sources: The five pages of author acknowledgments contain repeated references to people he can't name owing to their prominence or to concerns for their safety -- a teasing way to bolster his book's authenticity. Nor can he definitively answer the question he raises himself: Was Chalabi working as a spy for Iran?

To Roston's credit, he hasn't become ensnared in the tangle of competing factions and sects that is the curse of any author who takes on the modern Middle East. Yet the combination of staccato chapters and information overload makes ``The Man Who Pushed America to War'' a wearying read all the same.

Neocon Obsession

In the end, Roston can't even provide a coherent picture of Chalabi's true influence. Some observers believe that without Chalabi the U.S. wouldn't be in Iraq. But, despite his title, Roston keeps inadvertently reminding us that Chalabi was a useful yet hardly crucial means for the neocons to realize one of their cherished ends, the elimination of Saddam Hussein -- an obsession that existed independent of Chalabi.

You have to wonder whether, by elevating Chalabi's importance, Aram Roston isn't simply the latest journalist to be taken in by him.

``The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi'' is published by Nation Books (369 pages, $27.50).

(Charles Taylor is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this review: Charles Taylor at ctaylor121@nyc.rr.com.

Last Updated: April 22, 2008 00:01 EDT