Definition of Iyad Allawi

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Our Man in Baghdad



Definition of Iyad Allawi



Dr. Iyad Allawi (اياد علاوي) (born 1945) is the interim Prime Minister of Iraq. A prominent Iraqi-British neurologist and Iraqi exile political activist, the Shia Muslim became a member of the Iraq Interim Governing Council, which was created following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He became Iraq's first head of government since Saddam Hussein when the council dissolved on June 1, 2004 and named him Prime Minister of the Iraq interim government.

A former Ba'athist, Allawi set up and leads the CIA-supported Iraqi National Accord which carried out bombings in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the INA provided intelligence about alleged weapons of mass destruction to MI6. Allawi is also alleged to have personally executed six Iraqi prisoners in June 2004 to "send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents".

Allawi has lived about half of his life in the UK and retains British citizenship.

Contents [showhide]
1 Allawi's early life

2 Early political career

3 The Iraqi National Accord

4 Political career following the invasion

5 Interim Prime Minister

6 See also

7 External links



Allawi's early life
Allawi was born in 1945 to a prominent Shia merchant family; his grandfather helped to negotiate Iraq's independence from Britain, and his father was an MP. In the 1960s, he studied at medical school in Baghdad, where he first met Saddam Hussein.


Early political career
Allawi was an active supporter of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party in its early days when it was still banned. In 1971, he moved to London in order to continue his medical education. Some have reported this as an exile, but some of Allawi's old counterparts have claimed that he continued to serve the Baath Party, and the Iraqi secret police, searching out enemies of the regime. During this time he was president of the Iraqi Student Union in Europe. Seymour Hersh quotes former CIA officer Vincent Cannistraro: "[...] Allawi has blood on his hands from his days in London [...] he was a paid Mukhabarat agent for the Iraqis, and he was involved in dirty stuff." A Middle Eastern diplomat confirmed that Allawi was involved with a Mukhabarat "hit team" that killed Baath Party dissenters in Europe. However, he resigned from the Baath party for undisclosed reasons in 1975. [1] (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040628fa_fact)

At first Saddam, then Iraq's deputy president, pressured Allawi, who was in contact with senior military and party officers that were increasingly critical of Saddam, to rejoin Ba'ath. In 1978, friends told Allawi that his name was on a liquidation list. In February 1978 Allawi was awoken in bed one night by an intruder in his Surrey home, who proceeded to attack him with an axe. The intruder left, convinced that Allawi was dead. He survived the attempted murder, and spent the next year in hospital recovering from his injuries. It is presumed that the attack was an assassination attempt ordered by Saddam Hussein. [2] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23-2004Jan30.html)


The Iraqi National Accord
While still recovering in hospital from the assassination attempt, Allawi started organising an opposition network that would topple Saddam. Through the 1980s he built this network, recruiting Iraqis while traveling as a businessman.

In December 1990, Allawi announced the Iraqi National Accord (INA). The main sponsors of INA were the British, but they received secret backing from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States. The group consisted mainly of former military personnel who had defected from Saddam Hussein's Iraq to instigate a military coup. Allawi was recruited by the CIA in 1992 as a counterpoint to the more well-known CIA asset Ahmed Chalabi, and because of the INA's links in the Ba'athist establishment. According to former CIA officers, Allawi's INA organised terrorist attacks in Iraq between 1992 and 1995, allegedly including the bombing of a cinema and a school bus that killed school children. This campaign never posed a threat to Saddam Hussein's rule, but was designed to test INA's capability to effect regime change. [3] (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/09/politics/09ALLA.html?ex=1087747955&ei=1&en=c040fed2685e7eb8) [4] (http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=5270).

A military coup was planned for 1996, in which Iraqi generals were to lead their units against Baghdad and remove Saddam Hussein. The CIA supported the plot, code-named DBACHILLES, and added Iraqi officers that were not part of INA. The plan ended in disaster as it had been infiltrated by agents loyal to Saddam. US support was also questionable - requests by the CIA station chief in Amman for American air support were refused by the Clinton administration. Many participants were executed. Lands and factories belonging to the Allawi family were confiscated, even their graveyard in Najaf was demolished. According to Allawi, his family lost $250 million worth of assets. [5] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23-2004Jan30_2.html) US support for INA did not deteriorate, receiving $6 million covert aid in 1996 and 5$ million in 1995 (according to books by David Wurmser as well as Andrew and Patrick Cockburn).[6] (http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=agdsULUSsCdo&refer=europe)

Beginning in 2003, Allawi paid prominent Washington lobbyists and New York publicity agents more than $300,000 to give him access to Washington policy-makers and journalists. The funds passed through his ally in the UK, Mashal Nawab.

Allawi channelled the report from an Iraqi officer claiming that Iraq could deploy its supposed weapons of mass destruction within "45 minutes" to British Intelligence. [7] (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/kelly/story/0,13747,1131993,00.html) This claim featured prominently in the September Dossier which the British government released in 2002 to gain public support for the Iraq invasion. In the aftermath of the war, the "45 minute claim" was also at the heart of the confrontation between the British government and the BBC, and the death of David Kelly later examined by Lord Hutton. Giving evidence to the Hutton Inquiry, the head of MI6 Richard Dearlove suggested that the claim related to battlefield weapons rather than weapons of mass destruction.[8] (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/16/1063625031302.html?from=storyrhs&oneclick=true) An Allawi spokesman admitted in January 2004 that the claim was a "crock of shit."[9] (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-1126480,00.html)


Political career following the invasion
Allawi was appointed to the Iraqi Governing Council following his return from exile after the fall of Saddam in 2003. He held the rotating presidency of the interim governing council during October of 2003. In April 2004, Allawi reportedly resigned as head of the IGC security committee over concerns for US bombing of Fallujah, according to a letter published in INA's newspaper.[10] (http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=agdsULUSsCdo&refer=europe)

In December 2003, he flew to CIA headquarters in Langley together with fellow INA official Nouri Badran to discuss detailed plans for setting up a domestic secret service. The agency was to be headed by Badran, a former Ba'athist who served Saddam as an ambassador until 1990, and, controversially, recruit many agents of Saddam's Mukhabarat. [11] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A54518-2003Dec10¬Found=true) When the Iraqi National Intelligence Service was set up in March 2004, its designated director was Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed al-Shehwani, another former Ba'athist exile with ties to INA.

Allawi is related to Ahmed Chalabi, another prominent former exile and now disgraced U.S. ally, through his sister. The interim minister of trade Ali Allawi is Chalabi's sister's son as well as Iyad Allawi's cousin. The relationship between Chalabi and Allawi has been described as alternating between rivals and allies.[12] (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/29/1085641749684.html?from=storyrhs&oneclick=true) In addition, Nouri Badran, interim Minister of Interior, is married to Iyad Allawi's sister.[13] (http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=144)


Interim Prime Minister
On May 28, 2004, he was chosen by the council to be the Interim Prime Minister of Iraq to govern the country beginning with the United States' handover of sovereignty (June 30, 2004) until national elections, scheduled for early 2005. Although many believe the decision was reached largely on the advice of United Nations special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, the New York Times reported that Brahimi only endorsed him reluctantly after pressure from U.S. officials. (In response to a question about the role of the U.S. in Allawi's appointment, Brahimi replied: “I sometimes say, I'm sure he doesn't mind me saying that, Bremer is the dictator of Iraq. He has the money. He has the signature. Nothing happens without his agreement in this country.” [14] (http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/585/585p15.htm) Two weeks later, Brahimi announced his resignation, due to "great difficulties and frustration". [15] (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/438248.html))

At the time of his nomination, Allawi was often described in the US mainstream media as a moderate Shia, a member of Iraq's majority faith, chosen for his secular, pro-American views. Later, as military situation in Iraq worsened the death toll increased, coveraged became sometimes less flattering and included descriptions suggesting Allawi was Washington's puppet (e.g. Newsweek:"Iraq's New S. O. B." [16] (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5457368/), NYT: "Dance of the Marionettes" [17] (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/opinion/26dowd.html?hp)). The BBC attributes his nomination to being "equally mistrusted by everyone" in Iraq. [18] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3757923.stm) A secret document written in 2002 by the British Overseas and Defence Secretariat reportedly stated that within Iraq, Allawi was seen as "a western stooge" who "lacked domestic credibility". [19] (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/24/wus124.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/09/24/ixhome.html)

On June 28 2004 (two days early), the U.S.-led coalition handed over power to Allawi and the interim government, who were sworn in later that same day. After his interim government assumed legal custody of Saddam Hussein and re-introduced capital punishment, Allawi gave assurances that he would not interfere with the trial and would accept any court decisions. In an interview with Dubai-based TV station al-Arabiya he said: "As for the execution, that is for the court to decide — so long as a decision is reached impartially and fairly." [20] (http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040706_164.html)

On July 17, two Australian newspapers, the Sydney Morning Herald [21] (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/16/1089694568757.html?oneclick=true), [22] (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0716-01.htm) and The Age [23] (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/16/1089694560142.html?oneclick=true), published an article alleging that one week before the handover of sovereignty, Allawi himself summarily executed six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station. The allegations are backed up by two independent sources [24] (http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2004/s1155990.htm) and the execution is said to have taken place in presence of about a dozen Iraqi police, four American security men and Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib. Mr Allawi reportedly said that the execution was to "send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents". Both Allawi's office and Naqib have denied the report. US ambassador John Negroponte did not clearly deny the allegations. Iraq's Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin pledged to investigate the allegations against his PM.[25] (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200407/s1156598.htm)

On 18. July, Iraqi militants offered a $285,000 reward for anyone who could kill Iyad Allawi. [26] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3904151.stm)

During the summer of 2004, Allawi took several controversial decisions. He announced the creation of General Security Directorate, a domestic spy agency, recruiting at least some agents of Saddam Hussein's secret police, and whose main role is to counter-act terrorist groups and the Iraqi resistance. He gave himself the powers to declare martial law [27] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33260-2004Jul7.html). He closed the Iraqi office of al-Jazeera and nominated Ibrahim Janabi a former Ba'athist and Mukhabarat officer to head the newly created media ragulator. He also took moves to eliminate Muqtada al-Sadr from the scene. [28] (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5709446/site/newsweek/)


See also
Iraq interim government

External links
Dow Jones Newswire, 24 January 2004 (http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=2004012400040000&Take=1)
Profile in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1227176,00.html)
Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Iraq Leader Helped Agency in 90's Attacks - The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/09/politics/09ALLA.html?ex=1087747955&ei=1&en=c040fed2685e7eb8)
Profile on al-Jazeera (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6C99B500-2F8E-4558-9746-C315C59F1978.htm)
Profile in The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-1126480,00.html)
Short biography on middleeastreference.org.uk (http://middleeastreference.org.uk/iraqministers.html#alawi)
Disinfopedia entry (http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Iyad_Allawi)
Al-Sadr: Allawi team worse than Saddam (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6051C98D-2CE1-4DFF-A7B5-051065602EBD.htm) (Aljazeera)
Iraqi cleric slams war coverage under Allawi (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/12F048D0-893A-4DC4-AF97-4A779F160FFF.htm) (Monday 23 August 2004, Aljazeera)