UN, U.S. Agree on Allawi as Iraqi PM (CIA link)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, have agreed on the nomination of Iyad Allawi as prime minister of a new Iraqi government, a member of the Governing Council said Friday. Mahmoud Othman said Bremer and Brahimi had agreed to the council's choice of Allawi, a Governing Council member with long-time links to the CIA, as prime minister in the post-June 30 government.

"We had a meeting with Bremer and Brahimi and they both agreed and congratulated him and were happy about it," Othman told Reuters.

Congress, the Administration, and the Iraqi Opposition
Iraq News, OCTOBER 5, 1998
By Laurie Mylroie

"...Yet whatever the White House position toward the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998" may be, suspicion exists that the CIA is trying to sabotage it, through an effort to cobble together a broader opposition group, based around its failed client, the Iraqi National Accord (Wifaq). The idea seems to be to try to make the INA, a bunch of ex-Baathists, respectable enough to displace the Iraqi Nat'l Congress [INC], which really does aspire to democracy in Iraq, as the main recipient of the Congressionally-mandated assistance.
Saad Rashid, a UK-based Iraqi opposition figure, explained recent developments in this complex intrigue, in a message posted on "Iraq Net," the largest and most popular Iraq site on the web-- http://www.iraq.net/links.html Rashid wrote that the INA [also Wifaq] was "being used by the CIA to sabotage the resolution introduced in the Congress by creating problems within the Iraqi opposition ... Two weeks ago, the Wifaq organized a conference for 'human rights' in the Dutch capital, Hague, which they claimed was being financed by Qasim Dawood, a wealthy and respected Iraqi merchant living in the United Arab Emirates.
However, Qasim Dawood has publicly denied any involvement with the Wifaq, which is headed by Ayad Allawi, Tahseen Mualla, and Sallah al Sheikhly, all of whom are Baathists who worked for years with Saddam's regime. What Ayad Allawi and Sallah Al Sheikhly did not tell people that this conference was paid for ($320,000) by the CIA to 'overcome the paralysis of the INC' as they claimed. The conference failed miserably.
. . "My source also asserted that Ayad Allawi was brought over to Washington last week by the CIA on a secret visit... He stayed at the Key Bridge Marriot where he met several CIA officers over several days to discuss plans of sabotaging the new congress resolution for supporting the Iraqi opposition with military assistance which was designated to being a support for the INC under Dr. Ahmad Al-Chalabi... The plan is to create a division within the executive committee of the INC... The Iraqi opposition will look like a bunch of back-stabbing idiots who are running after the 99 million dollars the Congress is giving to the opposition.... Maybe the CIA hates the INC because they could not control them and INC does not use their cheap tactics of bombing civilians [ED: the Wifaq's bombing of civilian targets in Baghdad was made public in the spring of 1996 in articles by Jim Hoagland and Patrick Coburn] and because the INC wants to overthrow Saddam and create a democratic country with no commitments to such bad name American organization (CIA)."

http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/10/981005-in.htm

Actually it *is* spectacular. Here's why: Brahimi was wanting to annoint some 'technocrats', which meant he wanted to annoint some nobody's without too much real connections/power or a particluar constituency internally. To me, that was fraught with peril - an obscure technocrat would be too easy to paint as someone's pawn.

To nip opposition to the democratization process in the bud, we need someone to lead Iraq who had both a constituency and broad respect and not beholden to the outside (not US, not UN, not Iran, etc). Post-saddam we didnt have too many such people.

Based on what I've read so far ... This man was one of the few good possibilities. This guy was elected by every single IGC member, a unanimous choice by the Governing council. He is shiite, secular, has enough US connections to be satisfactory to us, but also has enough friends in former army to help defuse/deflate further the ex-baathist resentments.

This means we have a stronger leader with wider respect and a stronger pick than Brahimi was angling for. The real risk here was someone who'd look like the sovereignty was phony and would keep the Iraqi leadership in the shadows. Not now. This guy seems to be the real deal - he could be an elected PM in the future, and as an appointed leader he could be a unifying and calming figure.

If that happens, we can truly say the Iraqi liberation project will succeed. We can then say - "we will win".

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