Ο πρώην Ιρακινός πρωθυπουργός Ιγιάντ Αλάουι, ο πρώην διευθυντής της CIA Τζορτζ Τένετ και ο πρώην διπλωμάτης των ΗΠΑ Πάτρικ Θέρος (ανάρτηση μόνο για ψαγμένους αναγνώστες!)
Long-time
CIA “asset” installed as interim Iraqi prime minister
By Peter Symonds
31 May 2004
The insertion of Ayad Allawi
as the new Iraqi interim prime minister makes a mockery of Washington’s claims
to be bringing democracy to Iraq and preparing to hand over to a sovereign
government on June 30. Moreover, the crude and hamfisted manner in which the
appointment was made reveals a Bush administration that is itself torn by
vicious infighting and in complete disarray.
To defuse the growing Iraqi
hostility to the US-led occupation, the US had called on the services of the UN
and its special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to bring together an interim Iraqi
administration. Brahimi, who has engaged in behind-the-scenes haggling in Iraq
for weeks, was due to announce the new government this week for approval by the
US and the UN Security Council.
The plan rapidly fell apart
last week amid sharp differences over the choice of prime minister. Brahimi had
made clear all along that he was seeking a technocrat, who was not aligned with
any of the political factions in the Bush administration’s handpicked Iraqi
Governing Council (IGC). Washington, however, was not prepared to tolerate
anyone in the key executive post who was not wholly subservient to US
interests.
At the bidding of the US
proconsul in Baghdad Paul Bremer III, the IGC voted in favour of appointing
Ayad Allawi to the position last Friday. Bremer was called into the meeting to
give his formal blessing and the result was announced to the press. The move
preempted any decision by Brahimi, who was left with little option but to
declare that he welcomed the choice of Allawi.
UN officials endorsed the
decision, but were obviously furious about being effectively sidelined. UN
spokesman Fred Eckhard frostily declared last Friday that it was not what had
been “expected,” but UN Secretary General Kofi Annan “respected” the decision.
“‘Respect’ is a very carefully chosen word,” Eckhard added. “I assume this
choice will hold, but the process isn’t over yet. Let us wait and see what the
Iraqi street has to say about this name.”
Eckhard’s reference to the
“Iraqi street” reflected concerns that the decision by the IGC, widely regarded
as a collection of Washington’s political stooges, would not be widely
accepted. Even the IGC did little more than rubberstamp a decision made by
Bremer and other US officials. Kurdish IGC member Mahmud Othman told the media
over the weekend said that Allawi was a US choice: “He was an American
candidate. They brought him to us. We supported him.”
As for the “Iraqi street,”
Allawi is broadly despised by the Iraqi population. According to fieldwork last
month by the Iraqi Centre for Research and Studies, he was the least popular of
17 prominent Iraqi political personalities. Nearly 40 percent of Iraqis polled
were “strongly opposed” to Allawi—a figure that was even higher than for the
reviled Ahmad Chalabi, the favourite of the Pentagon neo-conservatives.
The reasons for Allawi’s
unpopularity are not difficult to find. He has a long and intimate association
with Western intelligence agencies and close connections to the Baath Party and
dissident elements of Saddam Hussein’s regime. His only “opposition” to Bremer
has been over the issue of “de-Baathification”. Allawi has insisted on
retaining officials from the key institutions of state repression—the military,
police and intelligence services—in order to deal with the mounting opposition
to the occupation.
Allawi presides over the IGC’s
security committee and has had a hand in building an Iraqi army and police
force. His deputy Nouri Badran, who is also a member of Allawi’s Iraqi National
Accord (INA), runs the interior ministry. His cousin Ali Allawi runs the
defence ministry. Last December Allawi flew to CIA headquarters in the US to
meet with CIA director George Tenet over the creation of a new Iraqi
intelligence service to counter the armed anti-US resistance.
According to an article in the
New York Times, Allawi received the green light to recruit ex-members of
the hated Mukhabarat intelligence service, which was responsible for much of
the torture and killings under the Hussein regime. Allawi’s associate Ibrahim
al-Janabi, another member of the IGC security committee, justified the move as
essential to establishing public order. “Under the Saddam regime, the entire
structure of Iraq was built around security. The mentality of the people
revolved around this security,” Janabi said.
Allawi has long been associated
with the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Born into a wealthy Shiite
merchant family, he became an enthusiastic member of the Baath Party while a
student in Baghdad. He went to London in 1971 to continue his medical studies
and resigned from the party in 1975. In 1978, an attempt was made on his life
in London, allegedly by Iraqi agents. Allawi told the Washington Post
recently: “At the time I was in contact with high-ranking Baath officials and
military officers who shared my view that Saddam had hijacked the party.”
Allawi’s orientation to
dissenting Baath Party members, particularly military and intelligence
officers, has been the hallmark of his opposition to the Hussein regime. With
the assistance first of the British MI6 then the CIA, he built a network of
contacts throughout the 1980s, travelling extensively in the Middle East as a
businessman. In December 1990, in the midst of the first Gulf War, Allawi
established the Iraqi National Accord (INA) with the support not only of London
and Washington, but of Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Allawi kept his distance from
his rival Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress (INC), preferring intrigues in
Baghdad to the INC’s far-fetched plans for a popular uprising. As Chalabi fell
out with the CIA, Allawi strengthened his ties and obtained approval for a coup
against Hussein. With British, US and Saudi backing, he set up headquarters and
a radio station in Jordan in 1996. The coup attempt later that year was a
miserable failure and resulted in the widespread arrest of members of his
network in Baghdad.
The INA was one of six
organisations to be favoured with US funding under the Iraq Liberation Act
passed in the US Congress in 1998. Allawi continued to collaborate closely with
the CIA and was one of the main sources of the “intelligence” that was used to
justify the invasion of Iraq. In particular, he was responsible for the claim,
notoriously used by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, that Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction could be operational in less than 45 minutes.
Following the fall of the
Hussein regime, Allawi was one of those installed by Washington in the IGC. As
well as enjoying the support of the CIA and US State Department, he has spent a
small fortune on hiring professional lobbyists in the United States to promote
himself in the US media and political establishment. According to papers filed
with US Justice Department, wealthy Allawi supporters have paid more than
$300,000 for the services of former US diplomat Patrick Theros, law firm
Preston, Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds and public relations company Brown
Lloyd James.
The installation of this
long-time CIA “asset” as head of the interim government in Baghdad will only
further alienate the Iraqi people, who have had no say whatsoever in determining
the composition of the regime to take office on June 30. It confirms that the
new Iraqi administration, which will be completely dependent on Washington
economically, militarily and politically, will be at the beck and call of the
White House.
Πηγή: wsws.org
