"Allawi was once a Ba'athist hitman in London who fell out with Saddam"

Juan Cole 17 July 2004

I searched for some evidence that this assertion was true.


Who Is Allawi?

By Ghali Hassan 19 June, 2004

Countercurrents.org

is the most detailed article I could find which seems to suggest not that Allawi was an assassin himself, but associated with them and was a Ba'athist spy while a student union leader. Maybe only Allawi knows the truth.

It seems pretty shoddy to be calling him Dr. Allawi if he got a medical degree "on the nod" through Ba'ath Party membership and didn't practice as a doctor. It should be quite easy to find out if he did practice since he was in England at the time.

I have already said it hardly matters what he did in earlier times since he is unlikely to be the first elected Prime Minister of Iraq. And if he can't quell the insurrection and terrorism, there will be no elections but rather a Lebanon-type proxy war which could go on for years or even decades.

The suggestion that he has been chosen for P.M. because of his Ba'ath and military connections makes a great deal of sense.

  ¶ Thursday, July 29, 2004 0 Comments