BAGHDAD, May 21 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - After a U.S.-backed raid by Iraqi police on his office and home, Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi, once a favorite of the Pentagon to lead the post-war Iraq, called on the U.S.-led occupation to leave Iraq.

"My message to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) is let my people go, let my people be free. We are grateful to President Bush for liberating Iraq but it is time for the Iraqi people to run their affairs," Chalabi said, in a press conference in Baghdad Thursday, May 20, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Commenting on the change of heart, American newspapers said Friday, May 21, that the fray comes as another failure for the U.S. forces, which had depended on Chalabi to get support among the Iraqis and on his intelligence to claim that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

Chalabi said Iraqi police and .U.S. officials raided the head office of his Iraqi National Congress (INC) and the adjacent house where he lives with interim Defense Minister Ali al-Alawi, Thursday morning.

The police removed documents, his personal files, computers and personal belongings, and nearly sparked a gun battle with his security guards.

A bedroom Chalabi had in the office had been turned upside down, cupboards emptied and framed portraits of the INC leader smashed.

For Chalabi, he said after the raid the U.S.-led forces should leave Iraq and the Iraqis should now be liberated after a more than one-year occupation.

"I am America's best friend in Iraq; if the CPA finds it necessary to direct an armed attack against my home you can see the state of relations between the CPA and the Iraqi people," Chalabi told the press conference.

He said the raids had been politically motivated and called on U.S. President George W. Bush to hand over sovereignty to the Iraqi people without delay.

The secular Shiite, who has amassed a banking fortune and was sentenced to jail by Jordan in absentia for fraud, said Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency officers participated in the two raids on his home and party offices.

But occupation spokesman Dan Senor said the raids had been "Iraqi-led" and that "Chalabi has worked closely with us over a number of months" to rebuild the country.

Another occupation spokesman denied that U.S. troops had raided Chalabi's complex, saying that "coalition forces merely provided a support role," according to AFP.

Chalabi said he had been targeted because the U.S. occupation forces disapproved his skepticism over the role of U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi in forming an interim government, and his private investigation into allegations of corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program.

He accused the Baghdad chief of police, who was responsible for the raids, as being a member of the former ruling Baath party who should have been fired under a U.S.-led "debaathification" policy last year.

Chalabi called for U.S.-appointed advisors to be replaced with those chosen by Iraqis after June 30 and urged the U.S.-led occupation to relinquish symbols of national power, like the Presidential palace used as occupation headquarters.

Chalabi also said Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr, who has waged a against occupation troops for more than a month, has the right to receive money from Muslims.

The prominent Shiite banker and politician has recently found disapproval in Washington over claims the INC fed false information to the U.S. government and media before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Wednesday the Pentagon had halted its monthly payments of 340,000 dollars to Chalabi's party and would seek other intelligence sources on Iraq, according to AFP.

The tension with Chalabi came as another disappointment for the U.S. occupation forces to win the "minds and hearts" of the Iraqis, according to U.S. papers Friday, May 21.

A year ago, as U.S. troops swept toward Baghdad, Ahmed Chalabi and about 400 hastily assembled fighters were secretly airlifted into southern Iraq to rally other Iraqis and begin a march toward Baghdad to help in the invasion of the oil-rich country, reported the Washington Post.

"When he arrived in Baghdad,…Chalabi almost immediately began rubbing U.S. officials the wrong way by asserting himself - and becoming a rival authority, " U.S. officials told the Washington Post Friday.

The U.S. failure to find weapons of mass destruction during the summer and fall further undermined his credibility, as the INC intelligence and defectors played a major role in building the case against Saddam, U.S. officials added.

"Now it's demonstrable that he told the U.S. government a lot of things that were not true," Pat Lang, former head of Middle East intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Post.

At the United Nations last year, Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the U.S. case for war, which included information on mobile labs for the production of chemical or biological weapons based on data from a defector provided by the INC, data that the United States has since conceded were untrue.

But Chalabi's close relationship with Iran, the only neighboring state that regularly deals with him, is now a further cause of concern in Washington, according to the Post.

The INC chief has always been a master at balancing the two foes, but U.S. officials have recently cited fears that Chalabi's ties could endanger U.S. operations in Iraq, the Post said.