The Bungled Transition

Thanks to a tip from Bill in DC.

Peter W. Galbraith gives us a bio of Iyad Allawi, the chosen one to lead Iraq, in this New York Review of Books piece.

Iyad Allawi is America's man in Iraq. The interim prime minister, a Shiite, is tough, pro-American, but not visibly subservient. He is determined to take on the responsibility of fighting the insurgents, whether Sunni or Shiite, and prepared to be as ruthless as necessary to win. In short, Iyad Allawi is exactly the man President Bush thinks he needs as he faces an election likely to turn on events in Iraq.

Within days of his designation as prime minister, Allawi spoke openly of postponing Iraq's elections and he gave himself the authority to impose martial law. In early August, he closed down al-Jazeera's Baghdad bureau in retaliation for unfavorable coverage. Meanwhile, the Bush administration quietly let Iraq's interim constitution the so-called Transitional Administrative Law expire stillborn, along with its much-ballyhooed protections for human rights, women, and democracy.

So, who is Allawi and where did he come from?

Iyad Allawi began his career in the Baath Party, and when he was sent to study in England in 1971, he allegedly spied on his Iraqi fellow students. He has been accused, without proof so far as I know, of participating in human rights abuses, including killings, during his Baath Party years. He did, however, break with Saddam Hussein a long time ago, and in the 1970s he became sufficiently antagonistic toward the regime to be targeted for assassination. In 1978, an assailant wielding an axe entered his bedroom and nearly severed his leg. It took Allawi a year in the hospital to recover.

In 1991, Iyad Allawi founded the Iraqi National Accord (INA), which attracted former regime officials, ex-military officers, and former Baath Party members—in short, people very much like Allawi himself. During the next few years, the INA became the favorite of the CIA, while Ahmed Chalabi's rival Iraqi National Congress (INC) gained support on Capitol Hill and, later, among the influential Pentagon neoconservatives in the Bush administration. Chalabi, along with his Kurdish and Shiite allies, promoted an Iraq that would be radically different from Saddam Hussein's. The INA stood for an Iraq more or less like the one Saddam Hussein ran but without Saddam and without the worst abuses of the Baath Party.

Allawi sounds like the neo-cons man, actually he sounds like early Saddam. Remember when Saddam was our friend? Saddam eventually got out of control so the 1st Bush administration set him up to invade Kuwait so they would have a reason to take him out. Well, it didn't work out that way so Bush II felt it was his responsibility to finish the job. So now we have Allawi, how long before he goes out of control?

There is more on Allawi and the Iraq situation so read the entire article.