Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld favors Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, an exile-émigré group, as postwar leader. Mr. Chalabi is bitterly opposed by both the State Department and the CIA.
American military planes flew Mr. Chalabi and 700 troops, the newly named "1st Battalion of Free Iraqi Forces," into Nasiriyah on Sunday to be integrated into Gen. Tommy Franks' command.
Mr. Chalabi has been in exile for four decades, and in 1992 he was convicted of multiple counts of embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars in Jordan after the failure of his bank there. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison. He escaped from Jordan, reportedly in the trunk of a car, and wound up in London.
The Iraqi National Congress has received millions in American aid money, but the accounting has been very poor and quite a bit of the money is unaccounted for.