After more than a year's absence from media limelight, Iraqi National Congress (INC) leader Ahmad Chalabi has resurfaced and as bold as brass, too.

Or overflowing with chutzpah as the Jews would have it, for he counts quite a number of their powerful as buddies.

This is a character even the most imaginative of fiction writers or spinners of tall tales from Texas would find hard put to conjure up.

It's also difficult to imagine that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reportedly had him in the cross-hair for allegedly leaking secrets to Iran. Despite that, he could still, earlier this month, waltz into the US.