Exiled Allawi (chosen PM of Iraq) was responsible for 45-minute WMD claim

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=526008

The choice of Iyad Allawi, closely linked to the CIA and formerly to MI6, as the Prime Minister of Iraq from 30 June will make it difficult for the US and Britain to persuade the rest of the world that he is capable of leading an independent government.

He is the person through whom the controversial claim was channelled that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could be operational in 45 minutes.

Dr Allawi, aged 59, who trained as a neurologist, is a Shia Muslim who was a member of Saddam Hussein's Baath party in Iraq and in Britain, where he was a student leader with links to Iraqi intelligence. He later moved into opposition to the Iraqi leader and reportedly established a connection with the British security services. His change of allegiance led to Dr Allawi being targeted by Iraqi intelligence. In 1978 their agents armed with knives and axes badly wounded him when they attacked him as he lay asleep in bed in his house in Kingston-upon-Thames.

Dr Allawi became a businessman with contacts in Saudi Arabia. He was charming, intelligent and had a gift for impressing Western intelligence agencies. After the 1991 Gulf War, the Iraq National Accord (INA) party, which he helped to found, became one of the building blocks for the Iraqi opposition in exile. The organisation attracted former Iraqi army officers and Baath party officials, particularly Sunni Arabs, fleeing Iraq.

In the mid-1990s the INA claimed to have extensive contacts in the Iraqi officer corps. Dr Allawi began to move from the orbit of MI6 to the CIA. He persuaded his new masters that he was in a position to organise a military coup in Baghdad.

With American, British and Saudi support, he opened a headquarters and a radio station in Amman in Jordan in 1996, declaring it was "a historic moment for the Iraqi opposition". After a failed coup attempt that year there were mass arrests in Baghdad. Abdul-Karim al-Kabariti, the Jordanian prime minister of the day, said that INA's networks were "all penetrated by the Iraqi security services".

...more...

THIS PISSES ME OFF MORE THAN I CAN SAY!!!

the creator of the mobile weapons labs....:shrug:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=588926

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=588026

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=588817

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=588817

little tidbits on each one. :)

This whole mess has me just madder than I thought I could get.

The absolute shameless scamming and destruction never stops with these jerks, does it?

just trying to keep all the info together....so many different variations, it makes my head spin. :crazy:

just like bush. Idiot.

What happened to al-Sadr's moment?

I just heard this on NPR. He has taken money from EVERYONE!He also has relatives working as middlemen accepting his kickbacks throughout the newly formed Iraqi (US APPOINTED) ministries. Can the US be any more stupid? This guy is dead meat.

The admin. through the NYT is making it seem as if Allawi was chosen by Brahimi. Brahimi claims the choice caught him off guard.

See:

www.talkingpointsmemo.com

Is this more like a recommendation or are they bypassing Brahimi?

to make it seem as if Brahimi chose him.

Courtesy of the BFEE.

I have looked for a link and it's not up yet.

Marketplace has been doing a series on Iraq reconstrution, with pretty hard-hitting stuff about the rampant corruption.

This reporter, who has a lot of experience in Iraq, said that Allawi has a well-known reputation for self-dealing and corruption and that he (the reporter) had spoken with several people who said specifically that they were paying bribes to Allawi through his relatives.

The reporter said that he does not think this will be a popular choice in Iraq, particularly because of this element of his reputation.

I will keep an eye out for a link on this story.

figure in Iraq currently (Chalibi is the most unpopular).

The reporter had absolute no positive things to say about Allawi. He said the ordinary Iraqis see Allawi as corropt as Saddam Husain. Also, he is a cousin to Chalibi, and his relatives control several ministries. Iraqis say the cronyism is as bad as Saddam's (I will say as bad as Bush's, too).

Listening in this report I almost yelled, what a joke Bush's bringing democracy to Iraq is! Now I have no doubt that big trouble in Iraq still waits for Bush after 6/30.

a WAD(weapon of asshole destruction).

It's got to be "Curveball" our intelligence asset, a cousin to Chalabi, who told us all about Iraq's WMDs.

These guys (Shrubco) remind me of that old Monty Python movie where the guy gets his arms & legs cuts off and refuses to holler Uncle.
:eyes:

~snip~
When American spooks proved resistant, Chalabi cozied up to their counterparts in foreign intelligence services. To the Germans, Chalabi provided a source code named "Curveball" (appropriately, as it turned out), who told of Saddam's building mobile bioweapons labs. Another defector sent to the DIA by Chalabi supported Curveball's tale. DIA labeled this defector a "fabricator" and attached a warning notice to his report, but the notice was so highly restricted that other intelligence officials never saw it. Both defectors' reports—apparently pure fiction—worked their way into official pronouncements and became part of the Bush administration's building case for war. Months later, when Colin Powell was feeling burned for having dramatically presented "facts" to the United Nations Security Council that turned out to be shaky at best, the secretary of State privately, but bitterly, blamed Chalabi.

Powell also faults the neocons in the Bush administration who swallowed Chalabi's phony stories and pushed them into speeches by the president and vice president. With his clever sense for bureaucratic gamesmanship, Chalabi fed the neocons' hunger for raw intelligence. If the CIA and other spy services weren't going to come up with the goods on Saddam, then Chalabi would. He found a receptive audience in the office of the vice president and at the Pentagon. I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the veep's chief of staff, and Wolfowitz were eagerly looking for links between Saddam and Al Qaeda. With his media friends, Chalabi hyped a story, often cited by the neocons, about a secret meeting in Prague between Muhammad Atta, the leader of the 9/11 hijackers, and a high-level Iraqi intelligence officer. (After months of investigation, the CIA and FBI determined that the meeting had never taken place.)

Much of chalabi's dubious intelligence was funneled to the DIA through top Pentagon civilians. Under Secretary Feith himself signed a long and detailed summary of the intelligence linking Saddam to terrorists and WMD. The Feith memo, stamped secret, submitted to Congress and leaked to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine last summer, reads like a conspiracy theorist's greatest hits. Interviewed last week by NEWSWEEK, Feith was a little defensive about his relationship with Chalabi. "The press stories would have him as my brother. I met him a few times. He was very smart, very articulate," Feith said. Feith allowed he has always been drawn to the stories of exiles who come back to save their countries. But he rejected the idea that he had been Chalabi's tool or dupe.

Over at the State Department and CIA, career bureaucrats viewed Chalabi with a jaundiced eye. State Department auditors found that Chalabi had not always kept the most meticulous records of the funds flowing into the Iraqi National Congress. Diplomats suspected Chalabi was using taxpayers' money to fund his own war-propaganda campaign, which was barred by law. In the summer of 2002, the State Department moved to cut off Chalabi's funding, but he was rescued by his friends at the Pentagon. That fall the Defense Department began picking up the check using secret intelligence funds. All told, Chalabi's INC has been paid about $33 million by State and some $6 million by the DIA. (Not all of Chalabi's intelligence operation was dodgy; last week, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers told Congress that some of the information turned over by the INC had saved the lives of American soldiers.)

~snip~
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5042327/

He's said to be a chemist. Sorry, I've got a German news source online, but a reputable one: Spiegel online.

The article may move into the pay-per-view archive soon:

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,298425,00.html

Of course. Who else could it possibly be? The perfect choice for the soon-to-be late Prime Minister of the totally sovereign state of Iraq ... Prime Minister Curveball!!!

the neocons have totaly lost it if they think this will fly.

Something about us deserving a foriegn policy team with minimal competence. Grown-ups my ass, they are nothing but a bunch of losers.

Birds of a feather.

The neocons are utterly corrupt, but not stupid*. The leaders of this cabal are making billions of dollars. They have hijacked our government and are using it for personal gain. The only way they lose is if we can punish them afteer the cabal is out of power. If they simply go away with billions of dollars, and thousands of dead innocent people in their wake, they win. Unfortunately, that is the likely outcome.

*Of course - GW Bush is stupid, but he is only a tool of the real ringleaders of the criminal administration.

after all, the last one turned out to be an Iranian spy...

...now I know. Figures. :puke:

Edit: Iranian spy, not "Iranina" (a pistachio-flavored soda?)

:kick:

"The U.S. has welcomed a decision by the Iraqi Governing Council to
nominate Shia former exile Iyad Allawi as Iraq's interim prime
minister."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3759423.stm

What a surprise! I wonder how long before Blair and Howard also
give their endorsement.

And I wonder how long he will last.

"Curveball"???
:evilfrown:

Just when I thought it couldn't. I guess this means that Chilabi will get a pass and the investigation into his nefarious ops will get swept under the proverbial rug. I just don't know how Bushco can get away with this persistent insanity. Only guess is that they have control over Congress and the Supreme Court to such an extent that nothing can touch them.

Will al Sitani, if he lives, call for an uprising sometime in July, headed up by al Sadr, if he is alive by then? I read where Bushco is trying to co-opt al Sadr with some sort of deal. We shall see if that pans out.As I see it these two are the only players that can thwart Buscho.

:kick:

I got an instant headache after reading this article. I can't even think of what to say.

Due to my sudden illness, I reserve the right to comment later.

"I gotta go lay down"! :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: