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U.S. Iraq Appointee a Fraud and a Danger Al Arab, Commentary, Dr. Haifa Al-Azawi, Feb 12, 2004 When I returned to the United States after a visit to Baghdad, I read an
article from the Associated Press titled “Exile Works to Win Influence in DC,”
by Ken Guggenheim. It described how Iyad Allawi, now a member of the
U.S.-appointed Iraqi governing Council, was emerging as a prominent leader.
Guggenheim reported Allawi has paid prominent Washington lobbyists and New York publicists more than $300,000 to help him make contacts with policy makers in Washington. Any physician who graduated from Baghdad Medical School between the years l962 and l970 will remember this big, husky man. The Baath party union leader, who carried a gun on his belt and frequently brandished it terrorizing the medical students, was a poor student and chose to spend his time standing in the school courtyard or chasing female students to their homes. When I entered medical school, Iyad Allawi was a student there and when I graduated he was still a student there. He tried to form a political party and, according to some friends of his, he faked names to make the party seem larger than it really was. His medical degree is bogus and was conferred upon him by the Baath party, soon after a WHO (World Health Organization) grant was orchestrated for him to go to England and study public health accompanied by his Christian wife, whom he dumped later to marry a Muslim woman. In England he was a poor student, visiting the Iraqi embassy at the end of each month to collect his salary as the Baath party representative. According to his first wife and her family members, he spent his time dealing with assassins doing the dirty work for the Iraqi government, until his time was up and he became their target. He went into hiding and came back as a double agent for the British and the CIA. Now, analysts have suggested that Allawi’s campaign might have been encouraged to counterbalance the influence of the much better known opposition figure Ahmed Chalabi. By the way, they are cousins. These kinds of people can put our U.S. government and our troops in bad positions and in danger. Laurie Mylroie, author of "Bush vs. the Beltway," and critical of the CIA handling of Iraq, blamed Allawi for what she said was faulty intelligence that endangered the U.S. troops at the end of the Gulf War. The United States plans to turn over power to Iraqis by July 1. We are all hoping to see reasonable, honest people in power; we do not want to see another potential Saddam. |
