plover
Jan20-05, 08:56 PM
"A Man of the Shadows (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact1)" – a profile of Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi
"Iyad is a man whom the French would call ‘a man of the shadows,’” his cousin Ali Allawi told me ... He described Allawi as enigmatic and elusive, qualities he attributed to Allawi’s early career as a Baathist, followed by his years spent working with Western intelligence agencies against Saddam. “He understands the Mukhabarat culture of intimidation,” Ali Allawi said, referring to the tactics of Iraq’s intelligence agency. ... [When Allawi was chosen interim PM] "... the intention was to re-create the security state, and Iyad was the man, almost by default,” he said. “Iyad sees maintaining power primarily as an intelligence game. It’s a kind of mind-set.”
[...]
More unnervingly, there have been persistent rumors that, a week or so before he took office, Allawi shot and killed several terrorist suspects being held prisoner at a Baghdad police station. ... although most Iraqis I spoke to believed the rumors, journalists and diplomats speculated that Allawi had spread them himself, in order to bolster his stern reputation. ... I sat in on an interview ... of a man who claimed to have witnessed the executions. He described how Allawi had been taken to seven suspects, who were made to stand against a wall in a courtyard of the police station, their faces covered. After being told of their alleged crimes by a police official, Allawi had asked for a pistol, and then shot each prisoner in the head. Afterward, the witness said, Allawi had declared to those present, “This is how we must deal with the terrorists.” The witness said that he approved of Allawi’s act, adding that, in any case, the terrorists were better off dead, for they had been tortured for days. In the ensuing months, the story has lingered, never having been either fully confirmed or convincingly denied.
[...]
Unlike Chalabi, who became infamous in America for having planted dubious stories about Saddam’s weapons programs, Allawi somehow emerged relatively unscathed from the W.M.D.-intelligence fallout. ... His appointment was a surprise. Allawi had kept an extremely low profile during the first year of the occupation, and his well-known links to U.S. and British intelligence had damaged his reputation among Iraqis. Yet he had long-standing ties to U.S. policymakers, who trusted him. According to an American official in Baghdad who was privy to the selection process, Allawi was seen as the candidate with the fewest liabilities. ... In the end, Allawi’s nomination was clinched when the members of the Iraqi Interim Governing Council unanimously endorsed him. Allawi’s sudden rise from obscurity suggested an impressive degree of political instinct, not least in knowing how and when to present himself as a useful man.
[...]
Allawi said that even before the war, when he had first learned that de-Baathification was being considered for Iraq, he had argued strongly against it. The program, he said, should have been called “de-Saddamization”—and limited to Saddam’s loyalists and cronies—because, in his opinion, most Iraqis who were members of the Baath Party during the Saddam years had merely used it as a “vehicle to live,” a means of obtaining and keeping their jobs and other state perks.
Baathism, he said, was “finished” as an ideology. “Just like Marxism-Leninism is finished. Their time has gone.” He went on, “As for the rest of it—élitism and secrecy and the use of force—there is no room for these things anymore. Now is the time for democracy and the rule of law.”
[...]
I talked with a sheikh from Falluja who, when I asked him how things were in his city, told me, “It’s been ruined.” His and his brother’s homes had been destroyed, he said. There was a lot of tension between residents and the American and Iraqi soldiers. He had disagreed with Allawi’s decision to order the assault on Falluja in November, but when I asked him what he thought of Allawi he said, “He’s a good man,” as if he assumed that this was what I wanted to hear. He evaded my attempts to find out if he planned to vote for Allawi, but finally said, “We see only the outside of Allawi. We’ve met with him many times, but we don’t know what’s in his heart, and we don’t know what’s behind his back.” He held up his left hand, and I saw that he was missing three fingers. “I lost these fingers and three brothers fighting in the Iran-Iraq War,” he said. “With all of that, I never felt afraid. But I do now. We are scared about the future.”
[...]
The Iraqis I spoke with tended to view Allawi with both detachment and respect. No one seemed to support him passionately, and most people felt that they still didn’t know him very well. They regarded him as a cunning pragmatist—a tough, capable man who had made the most of his relationship with the C.I.A. Allawi’s good standing with U.S. officials seemed to mean a lot to most Iraqis I spoke with, many of whom also believed that the Americans were determined to keep Allawi in office.
[Ambassador] Negroponte dismissed this idea. He said, “Does Allawi have more to contribute? Yes, I think, definitely. Is he the only one? No. The Iraqis are going to have to work that one out.”
"Iyad is a man whom the French would call ‘a man of the shadows,’” his cousin Ali Allawi told me ... He described Allawi as enigmatic and elusive, qualities he attributed to Allawi’s early career as a Baathist, followed by his years spent working with Western intelligence agencies against Saddam. “He understands the Mukhabarat culture of intimidation,” Ali Allawi said, referring to the tactics of Iraq’s intelligence agency. ... [When Allawi was chosen interim PM] "... the intention was to re-create the security state, and Iyad was the man, almost by default,” he said. “Iyad sees maintaining power primarily as an intelligence game. It’s a kind of mind-set.”
[...]
More unnervingly, there have been persistent rumors that, a week or so before he took office, Allawi shot and killed several terrorist suspects being held prisoner at a Baghdad police station. ... although most Iraqis I spoke to believed the rumors, journalists and diplomats speculated that Allawi had spread them himself, in order to bolster his stern reputation. ... I sat in on an interview ... of a man who claimed to have witnessed the executions. He described how Allawi had been taken to seven suspects, who were made to stand against a wall in a courtyard of the police station, their faces covered. After being told of their alleged crimes by a police official, Allawi had asked for a pistol, and then shot each prisoner in the head. Afterward, the witness said, Allawi had declared to those present, “This is how we must deal with the terrorists.” The witness said that he approved of Allawi’s act, adding that, in any case, the terrorists were better off dead, for they had been tortured for days. In the ensuing months, the story has lingered, never having been either fully confirmed or convincingly denied.
[...]
Unlike Chalabi, who became infamous in America for having planted dubious stories about Saddam’s weapons programs, Allawi somehow emerged relatively unscathed from the W.M.D.-intelligence fallout. ... His appointment was a surprise. Allawi had kept an extremely low profile during the first year of the occupation, and his well-known links to U.S. and British intelligence had damaged his reputation among Iraqis. Yet he had long-standing ties to U.S. policymakers, who trusted him. According to an American official in Baghdad who was privy to the selection process, Allawi was seen as the candidate with the fewest liabilities. ... In the end, Allawi’s nomination was clinched when the members of the Iraqi Interim Governing Council unanimously endorsed him. Allawi’s sudden rise from obscurity suggested an impressive degree of political instinct, not least in knowing how and when to present himself as a useful man.
[...]
Allawi said that even before the war, when he had first learned that de-Baathification was being considered for Iraq, he had argued strongly against it. The program, he said, should have been called “de-Saddamization”—and limited to Saddam’s loyalists and cronies—because, in his opinion, most Iraqis who were members of the Baath Party during the Saddam years had merely used it as a “vehicle to live,” a means of obtaining and keeping their jobs and other state perks.
Baathism, he said, was “finished” as an ideology. “Just like Marxism-Leninism is finished. Their time has gone.” He went on, “As for the rest of it—élitism and secrecy and the use of force—there is no room for these things anymore. Now is the time for democracy and the rule of law.”
[...]
I talked with a sheikh from Falluja who, when I asked him how things were in his city, told me, “It’s been ruined.” His and his brother’s homes had been destroyed, he said. There was a lot of tension between residents and the American and Iraqi soldiers. He had disagreed with Allawi’s decision to order the assault on Falluja in November, but when I asked him what he thought of Allawi he said, “He’s a good man,” as if he assumed that this was what I wanted to hear. He evaded my attempts to find out if he planned to vote for Allawi, but finally said, “We see only the outside of Allawi. We’ve met with him many times, but we don’t know what’s in his heart, and we don’t know what’s behind his back.” He held up his left hand, and I saw that he was missing three fingers. “I lost these fingers and three brothers fighting in the Iran-Iraq War,” he said. “With all of that, I never felt afraid. But I do now. We are scared about the future.”
[...]
The Iraqis I spoke with tended to view Allawi with both detachment and respect. No one seemed to support him passionately, and most people felt that they still didn’t know him very well. They regarded him as a cunning pragmatist—a tough, capable man who had made the most of his relationship with the C.I.A. Allawi’s good standing with U.S. officials seemed to mean a lot to most Iraqis I spoke with, many of whom also believed that the Americans were determined to keep Allawi in office.
[Ambassador] Negroponte dismissed this idea. He said, “Does Allawi have more to contribute? Yes, I think, definitely. Is he the only one? No. The Iraqis are going to have to work that one out.”