Is this what they mean with the saying about a "bad penny"?

Please tell me this is not real. That I've stayed up too late and I'm getting this all wrong: Minister steps aside amid Iraq oil crisis ABC News Online 12/31/05.

Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi has assumed direct control of the powerful oil ministry as crude exports grind to a halt due to sabotage attacks and logistics problems, officials say.

Mr Chalabi, who has been improving relations with Washington after previously falling out with the US administration, was appointed acting oil minister after the incumbent Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum was given leave, the officials say.

Mr Uloum told Reuters he was "intent on resigning" while aides to Mr Chalabi, a former financier, confirmed he had been appointed acting oil minister. (my emphasis)

How the [Cheney] can something like this happen? It may have something to do with the fact that the Pentagon gave überscamster Chalabi and his cronies access to secret police files that his rivals didn't have. The files that weren't pilfered or destroyed in the looting in Baghdad, that is.