LONDON, May 25: Officials in Washington suspect Iran duped the United States into invading Iraq by slipping bogus intelligence to Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC), The Guardian newspaper said on Tuesday.

"Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq," it said in a front-page dispatch from Washington.

Quoting a US intelligence official, The Guardian said Mr Chalabi's intelligence chief, Ara Kariim Habibi, had been paid by Iranian agent for several years, "passing intelligence in both directions".

"It's pretty clear that Iranians had us for breakfast, lunch and dinner," it quoted an intelligence source in Washington as saying. "Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the US for several years through Chalabi."

A US official said on Friday the United States is investigating evidence Mr Chalabi gave sensitive information to Tehran, after authorities last week raided INC offices and Chalabi's home in Baghdad, seizing documents, computers, personal belongings and weapons. -AFP