Shorter Ayad Allawi: I’d like to be the leader of Iraq again, please. Allawi was the interim Prime Minister of Iraq from June 2004 until April 2005. Prior to that, he was member of Iraq’s Presidential Committee. He is one of the more disreputable people among the Iraqi exile community. Back in December 2003, he made an extraordinary claim in the UK Telegraph. He claimed to have unearthed a document that turned Dick Cheney from a pathological liar into a truth-teller. The document simultaneously proved that Mohammed Atta really did receive training and direction from Iraq, but also that Saddam Hussein really did procure enriched uranium from Niger. :
Iraq’s coalition government claims that it has uncovered documentary proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist.
Details of Atta’s visit to the Iraqi capital in the summer of 2001, just weeks before he launched the most devastating terrorist attack in US history, are contained in a top secret memo written to Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.
The handwritten memo, a copy of which has been obtained exclusively by the Telegraph, is dated July 1, 2001 and provides a short resume of a three-day “work programme” Atta had undertaken at
at Abu Nidal’s base in Baghdad.In the memo, Habbush reports that Atta “displayed extraordinary effort” and demonstrated his ability to lead the team that would be “responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy”.
The second part of the memo, which is headed “Niger Shipment”, contains a report about an unspecified shipment – believed to be uranium – that it says has been transported to Iraq via Libya and Syria.
Although Iraqi officials refused to disclose how and where they had obtained the document, Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq’s ruling seven-man Presidential Committee, said the document was genuine.
“We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam’s involvement with al-Qaeda,” he said. “But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks.”
The idea that a document might exist that simultaneously proved an Iraq connection to 9/11 and that Niger diverted uranium to Saddam…coming in December 2003 (right before Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed to investigate l’affair Plame) was rightly regarded with extreme skepticism in the American press. Only Dick Cheney’s personal stenographer, William Safire, was dishonest enough to give it credence.
Example: Dr. Ayad Allawi, an Iraqi leader long considered reliable by intelligence agencies, told Britain’s Daily Telegraph last week that a memo has been found from Saddam’s secret police chief to the dictator dated July 1, 2001, reporting that the veteran terrorist Abu Nidal had been training one Mohamed Atta in Baghdad. Nobody disputes that a few months after Atta’s 9/11 suicide mission, Nidal was permanently silenced by Saddam’s police, the only “suicide” to be found with four bullets in his head.
Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball quickly debunked the memo and it is largely forgotten. But Cheney did not forget, and Allawi got a promotion to his interim Prime Minister position. We quickly worked to set up an internal security service that relied heavily on former Ba’athists and made himself immensely unpopular among both Sunni and Shi’a by approving the American attacks on both Najaf and Falluja.
Allawi led the Iraqi National Accord during the January 2005 Iraqi election. His campaign was mainly characterised by his attempt to improve his image, which had been seriously damaged as a result of his many unpopular decisions. His campaign reached a low point when he visited the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf on December 4, 2004, where a group of angry shia worshipers hurled their shoes at him. Later on, in a face saving statement, Allawi claimed that it was an assassination attempt, a claim that brought him much ridicule from Iraqis.
The INA polled a distant third, with 14% of the vote, suggesting a lack of domestic support for Allawi’s rule. This was probably due to, among other factors, his past membership in the Baath party, numerous allegations of corruption and of financial fraud when he was prime minister (arrest warrants have been issued for ministers in his administration), and a real perception among Iraqis, both Shia and Sunni, that he has a somewhat thuggish character, reminiscent of Saddam Hussein.
So, it should concern us that he has taken to the Washington Post this morning to detail a new plan for Iraq.
