Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, 71, has died in Baghdad.

Chalabi influenced American lawmakers and presidential advisers to invade Iraq and overthrow the Saddam Hussein government in 1998.

Chalabi lived in exile until the end of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship. Officials said he died of heart failure.

Chalabi influenced the U.S. Congress to pass the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998. That permitted military action in Iraq. Former President George W. Bush said it would bring democracy to Iraq and the region. He was friends with former Vice President Dick Cheney and many top Pentagon officials, according to the New York Times.

Chalabi said he believed Saddam Hussein held weapons of mass destruction, the Times reported in his obituary. He survived an assassination attempt in 2008. In that attack, he was targeted by a suicide bomber. After that, Chalabi allied himself with Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite leader and Iran ally.