The strongman of Baghdad

13 November 2004

Andrew Gilligan on the murky past of Iyad Allawi, who this week cleared the way for the attack on Fallujah

Undaunted, Mr Allawi kept up his contacts (and income) with the spooks and an even thirstier, less discriminating audience, the British press. At top-secret meetings in London hotels, murmured conversations with selected extra-gullible hacks would produce exciting headlines in top right-wing newspapers. It was the INA, in July 2000, which fed the Sunday Telegraph the sensational scoop that Saddam had deployed crack ‘Mata Hari’ teams of killer belly-dancers to Britain to assassinate his political opponents, a story which continues to be remembered with tears of real joy whenever Iraq-watching journalists gather to reminisce.

Mr Allawi may never have been able to bring about a real coup, but he was certainly unmatched in the PR variety. After the war, it emerged that the legendary claim that Saddam could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes — the claim that did more than any other to book British troops their passage to the Gulf — was, in fact, an INA production. (The source was an INA-supporting general, Abdul Muhie, whose son-in-law, a frontline army officer, claimed to have seen boxes of ‘special weapons’ that were to be used in the event of an invasion. After the war, it emerged that the son-in-law had not actually seen inside the boxes, leaving even a shamefaced INA spokesman to describe the ‘well-sourced intelligence’ as a ‘crock of shit’.)

Mr Allawi has spent the 18 months since the war working flat out to build his political base. This does not seem to have involved much contact with the Iraqi people. The security situation is so difficult these days, after all. But it does seem to have involved a lot of contact with American political lobbyists. Filings to the US justice department show that Mr Allawi has, since summer 2003, paid between $50,000 and $100,000 a month to a constellation of Washington political consultants — sums far greater than those spent by any of his rivals. When the time came to choose an interim prime minister, it was Mr Allawi, somewhat to everyone’s surprise, who was picked by the Governing Council — which was made up of Iraqis, but US-appointed ones.