Iraq: Check out the new boss, same as the old boss

[gr8fuldaniel]

When will someone tell Bush the meaning of the word "Democracy"? When he says he will liberate the people of Iraq, what is he thinking? Bush really was serious when he said "a dictatorship would fine as long as Im the dictator"

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/...694568757.html Allawi shot prisoners in cold blood: witnesses By Paul McGeough in Baghdad July 17, 2004 Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings. They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western suburbs. They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they "deserved worse than death". The Prime Minister's office has denied the entirety of the witness accounts in a written statement to the Herald, saying Dr Allawi had never visited the centre and he did not carry a gun. But the informants told the Herald that Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister's personal security team watched in stunned silence.

Nice Guy, eh? How can anyone believe anything Bush says from this point forward

[Dieval]

Originally posted by gr8fuldaniel, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/...694568757.html Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings. ..... The Prime Minister's office has denied the entirety of the witness accounts in a written statement to the Herald, saying Dr Allawi had never visited the centre and he did not carry a gun.

Sounds like a conflicting story to me...

[gr8fuldaniel]

I am not surprised they denied it. One account had 30 witnesses in the courtyard. We'll see.

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20...05522-1300r.htm
Report: Allawi shot Iraqi suspects

Baghdad, Iraq, Jul. 16 (UPI) -- Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi killed six suspected insurgents just days before he was handed power, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The report cites two witnesses to the killing who say Allawi fatally shot the prisoners, who were handcuffed, blindfolded and lined up against a wall in a courtyard near the maximum-security facility at al-Amariyah security centre near Baghdad. They quoted Allawi as saying the men "deserved worse than death" because each had killed some 50 Iraqis.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...7/s1156008.htm
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/...l?oneclick=true

This one grants that it may be rumors http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/16/...l?oneclick=true

[gr8fuldaniel]

A Detailed, Believable Account from ABC Lateline Iraqi PM executed six insurgents: witnesses Reporter: Maxine McKew MAXINE MCKEW: Let's go straight to the allegations that Iyad Allawi executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station at the end of June. The explosive claims in tomorrow's Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers allege that the prisoners were handcuffed and blindfolded, lined up against a courtyard wall and shot by the Iraqi Prime Minister. Dr Allawi is alleged to have told those around him that he wanted to send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents. Two people allege they witnessed the killings and there are also claims the Iraqi Interior Minister was present as well as four American security men in civilian dress. Well, the journalist reporting the story is Paul McGeough, awarded a Walkley Award for his coverage of the Iraq war last year. He's also a former editor of the Herald and is now the paper's chief correspondent. He's joined me on the line from a location in the Middle East. MAXINE McKEW: Paul McGeough, thanks for joining us. Paul, as you've also made clear in your article, Prime Minister Allawi has flatly denied this story. Why then is the Herald so confident about publishing it? PAUL McGEOUGH, 'SYDNEY MORNING HERALD' AND 'AGE' FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Well it's a very contentious issue. What you have is two very solid eyewitness accounts of what happened at a police security complex in a south-west Baghdad suburb. They are very detailed. They were done separately. Each witness is not aware that the other spoke. They were contacted through personal channels rather than through the many political, religious or military organisations working in Baghdad that might be trying to spin a tale. And they've laid it out very carefully and very clearly as to what they saw. MAXINE McKEW: You haven't identified these witnesses but why have they felt free to talk about such an extraordinary story? PAUL McGEOUGH: Well, they were approached through personal connections and as a result of that, they accepted assurances. They were guaranteed anonymity, they were told that no identifying material would be published on them and they told what they saw. MAXINE McKEW: And just take us through the events as they were accounted to you? PAUL McGEOUGH: Well, I'll take you through what the two bits of pieces of what the two witnesses said to give you the full chronology as I understand it. There was a surprise visit at about 10:30 in the morning to the police centre....(More)

[giuliano]

what a surprise! who'd have guessed that the new govt woulnd't turn out to be a model of representative democracy?

i'm shocked!

[Osborn F Enready]

LOL

[Zeebadee]

Ah yes, the old American habit of replacing a currently unfriendly dictator with a currently friendly one. How much money will we give him and how long will it take before he turns against us and we have to spend more GI lives to start the cycle over again?? Do our politicians never learn??

[ComradeRed]

Ahhh! American Democracy!

[Mr.Vicchio]

Ahh the typical Wack Response. "alleged" means the same as "did" and nothing will convince you people otherwise.

"OMG did you read that XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Allegedly happened in Iraq! It must be ture so F BUSH!"

Real intelligent, real people, real debate. Want it? Don't look here, cause it don't exsist.

[giuliano]

it's interesting that you try to discredit this as rumours. the truth is it would be more shocking if this wasn't true, and he was in fact an upstanding politician determined to institute western-style procedural justice.

this is the sort of justice used and accepted in middle-eastern societies.

it is not liberals who are willing to believe every rumour or allegation, but some of you conservatives who are too willing to accept that now that the US have walked in, everything has or will change.

the only thing that's changed for sure is that Bush has his name on it now.

[castille]

I allege that Iraqis are controlled by Adolf Hitler.


Until they find proof, I don't buy the story. Plenty of politicians allege things - hell, if I was a fanatical Islamic cleric I would allege a lot more things about the new Iraqi president.

[giuliano]

1. your allegation is not credible. this one is much more credible.
2. it's more than an allegation anyway. read the articles. they went to some length to verify those accounts. it's not proof yet, but it's certainly much more than just an allegation.

[gr8fuldaniel]

All we need now is a photo-op with Rummy shaking hands with Allawi , and handing off a wheelbarrow full of anthrax, cash, and mustard gas

[giuliano]

i'm guessing he has the good sense these days to ban cameras on those trips :)

[Kyran]

I'm interested in finding out whether this story is fact or fraud.

By the way, for those of you who say this is a habit of my country's leaders would you care to produce a scorecard? Got any tangible history I can look at? A timeline with associated presidents and foreign relations personnel would be very useful.

Oh and one last thing. If you guys are willing to accept allegations from two sources, how about I break out the old King James Version here for ya?

Haaaahahahaha.

[giuliano]

Originally posted by Kyran, By the way, for those of you who say this is a habit of my country's leaders would you care to produce a scorecard?

these guys has had a shot and come up with 25.

i don't vouch for all of those, but i would call it a habit, yes.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Originally posted by Kyran, By the way, for those of you who say this is a habit of my country's leaders would you care to produce a scorecard? Got any tangible history I can look at? A timeline with associated presidents and foreign relations personnel would be very useful.

Yes, Go to the library and check out 2 books by Gore Vidal: 1) Dreaming War, and 2) Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace

[gr8fuldaniel]

This is from the back page of "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, How We Got To Be So Hated" ..."The Federation of American Scientists has catalogued nearly 200 military incursions since 1945, in which the USA has been the aggressors." http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/156025405X...001#reader-link There is a list in the first chapter, I believe

[PatrickHenry]

More from McGeough on Allawi:
http://smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/16/1089...l?oneclick=true

His enemies say he was an assassin for Saddam Hussein. Now Iyad Allawi is accused of personally executing prisoners. Paul McGeough examines the dark background of Iraq's new Prime Minister. <snip> The first unvarnished look at Allawi's past since he was named leader of post-Saddam Iraq was by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, in which he quoted an unnamed US intelligence officer on the ties between Allawi and Saddam in the 1960s: "Allawi helped Saddam get to power." Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA case officer who served in the Middle East, elaborated further: "He was a very effective operator and a true believer. Two facts stand out about Allawi. One, he likes to think of himself as a man of ideas; and, two, his strongest virtue is that he's a thug." Hersh also quoted this assessment of Allawi by another former CIA officer, Vincent Cannistraro. "If you're asking me if Allawi has blood on his hands from his days in London, the answer is yes, he does. He was a paid Mukhabarat [intelligence] agent for the Iraqis, and he was involved in dirty stuff." An unnamed Middle Eastern diplomat spelt it out a bit more for Hersh, claiming that Allawi was involved with a Mukhabarat "hit team" that ran to ground and killed Baath party dissenters throughout Europe. <snip> What comes through in his attitude to the past is a sense of the same ambiguity that allowed so much of the Iraqi elite - the moneyed, the intelligentsia and the officer class - to take their reward under Saddam while seeing little to complain about in the system that Saddam built. Ghanim Jawad, a human rights campaigner at the Al-Khoei Foundation, a Shiite charitable organisation in London, was not impressed when he looked down the road to Allawi's Baghdad: "I think [Allawi] will succeed in creating not a fully democratic state, but something on the model of Jordan or Egypt." But if he could get that far on the back of the military, police and internal intelligence complex he wants to build, to what use might he put them once he had a semblance of security? It sounds like Saddam-Lite in the making; and in it all there's an odour of the Arab authoritarianism that the Bush men say they came to eradicate.

Read the article. It's pretty reasonable and doesn't engage in America bashing, for those who are sensitive to such an attitude...He's Washington's proxy in Baghdad now. Might as well find out what we can about him.

[Aussie Battler]

kyran, try this site. it's similar to the list given at the top of this page, but a bit more information. it's from the Communist Party of Australia

http://www.cpa.org.au/special.html

p.s: i aint a commie! i found this when i had to do an essay on US foreign policy and US intervention in foriegn countries.
p.p.s: i don't know how biased it is
p.p.p.s: i aint a commie!
p.p.p.p.s: they actually run for election at all levels of government here!