CAIRO, 22 June 2004 — Iraq’s interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has appointed a ministerial panel to study whether Iraqis should be subjected to curfews and bans on public demonstrations after the June 30 handover. If Iraqis wake up to emergency law on July 1, instead of the promised and much vaunted “freedom and democracy”, the move will surely symbolize America’s failed policies in the region like no other.
Admittedly, Allawi has a lot on his plate. Disgruntled Kurdish commandos are said to be training with Israelis to counteract Iranian influence on the country via Shiite militias. Many Kurds feel that the US, reluctant to upset the influential Grand Ayotallah Ali Al-Sistani, has essentially sold them out when rubber-stamping the new constitution, which deprives them of various powers of veto. They further maintain they were initially promised the ministries of defense and foreign affairs, but were only afforded the latter — the defense portfolio going to Allawi’s cousin Ali Allawi.
At the same time, Iyad Allawi — an ex CIA man with close links to the US and a relative of the convicted embezzler and alleged Iranian-paid spook Ahmad Chalabi — has a credibility problem. Eager to prove himself no mere marionette, Allawi is re-assembling the Iraqi Army and encouraging firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr to engage in the political process instead of insurgency. Moreover, Allawi is welcoming former Baathists into the fold and attempting to wrest back Saddam’s main Baghdad palace from comfortably ensconced US head honchos who want it as an annex to the biggest and most fortified American Embassy in the world. So far so good!
But then he goes and spoils it all by stressing how much the country needs the occupying forces to stay on and asking the international community, including NATO, to contribute more. His reaction to the recent American bombing raid on Fallujah, resulting in the deaths of 22 members of one family, hasn’t helped his case either. While the city’s police chief bitterly condemned the attack, which the US says was launched to take out a terrorist safe-house, Allawi defended it during a press conference saying: “We welcome this hit on terrorists anywhere in Iraq”. The problem is there were only civilians, including three women and five children among the dead.
Allawi is treading a fine line. Mish’an Al-Jabouri, an Iraqi columnist, described Allawi as “a man who embodies the aspirations of the Iraqi Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. He maintains good relations with everyone — he is a friend of the Syrians, ally of the Jordanians, welcomed in Egypt and Turkey, and supported by Saudi Arabia, in addition to his good relations with the British and the Americans”.
Unfortunately Iraq’s Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds have widely differing aspirations and it is difficult, if not impossible, to envisage just how he intends to please all of them. Already the Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi Al-Madrasi has commented upon “the absence of the more popular Islamic current in the government”, whose members have been chosen for their secular leanings and educational background. When three former Shiite ministers demanded that women in their employ wore the hijab and men grow beards, they were speedily sent packing.
The jury is still out on Allawi as far as the international community and most Iraqis are concerned, but he cannot escape accusations of running a crony operation, especially since another of his relatives Salem Chalabi is heading the tribunal set up to try Saddam and former members of his government currently in US-run jails. The fact that Salem Chalabi has close business links with Marc Zell, a partner in Zell, Goldberg & Co., which claims to be one of Israel’s fastest-growing business-oriented law firms can’t help but raise eyebrows. Zell, who is a marketing consultant for Salem’s Baghdad-based law outfit was formerly a partner in the same law firm as rabid pro-Zionist Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith — a founder member of the Project for a New American Century and one of the main cheerleaders for the invasion.
Allawi, who in 1996 plotted a failed military coup against Saddam, was a keen supporter of the invasion hoping it would result in Iraq becoming a vibrant democratic state. But his kitchen Cabinet doesn’t bode well for democracy, neither does his issuing of strict rules for the media and temporary banning orders to Arabic networks. We must also question why Allawi agrees to allow Americans to continue guarding Saddam Hussein after June 30, while he will legally be in the custody of “sovereign” Iraq.
If emergency laws are introduced, the invasion will surely go down in history as a black period for the US. All the pretexts have been blown wide open, including the WMD red herring, Saddam’s purported links to Osama Bin Laden, and the bringing of democracy and freedom to the Iraqis. And yet Bush, Cheney and Blair still sing from the same flawed hymn sheet. Blair and Cheney say they still expect to find a pot marked WMD at the end of the rainbow; all three insist Iraq had meaningful links with Al-Qaeda despite the findings of the 9-11 Commission to the contrary. If we fall for such orchestrated mendacity then more fool us.
If Saddam ever gets a fair and transparent trial, this might blow the lid off those claims, not to mention expose the CIA’s role in the dictator’s rise to power and America’s supply to Iraq of WMD in the 1980s. With Salem Chalabi in charge of proceedings, we might as well whistle down the wind. America’s boy, currently clamoring to re-institute the death penalty, will never allow his masters’ secrets to be divulged. What’s the betting Saddam will “go mad”, come down with a mysterious illness or sign a confession letting the US off the hook in return for life imprisonment? Get ready for the next installment!
— Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs and welcomes feedback at [email protected]
