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Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is orchestrating a campaign of persecution against political rivals "even worse" than Saddam Hussein's reign of terror, his predecessor has claimed. US reviews security firms after 11 Iraqis die Audio: Former Iraqi leader warns of paralysis In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Ayad Allawi claimed agents of Mr Maliki's Dawa Party were tightening their control of Iraq to emulate the creeping coup tactics used by the deposed Ba'ath Party to take over in the 1960s. Ayad Allawi calls for his successor, Nouri al-Maliki, to be replaced. He claimed that Mr Maliki commands his own...

CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) — A powerhouse Republican lobbying firm with close ties to the White House has begun a public campaign to undermine the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, CNN has confirmed. .................. A senior Bush administration official told CNN the White House is aware of the lobbying campaign by Barbour Griffith & Rogers because the firm is "blasting e-mails all over town" criticizing al-Maliki and promoting the firm's client, former interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, as an alternative to the current Iraqi leader. ................ The lobbying firm boasts the services of two onetime foreign policy hands...

The former Iraqi prime minister speaks out on how he hired a well-connected Washington lobbying firm to help pave his attempt to oust the current government. Who’s footing the bill? Aug. 29, 2007 - The powerhouse Washington lobbying firm hired by former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi is talking to the Justice Department about how to amend its foreign-agent filings after department lawyers questioned whether the firm had adequately disclosed who was paying the firm’s tab. The talks came as Allawi told NEWSWEEK that two Iraqi supporters of his were footing the $300,000 bill for the contract he recently signed...

Former interim Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi, who is trying to put together a new coalition to replace the current Baghdad government headed by Nouri al-Maliki, said yesterday that a powerful Washington lobbying firm is working on his behalf, funded by an Iraqi whom he cannot identify. Allawi confirmed on CNN's "Late Edition" yesterday that Barbour Griffith & Rogers had been hired "to help us advocate our views, the views of the nationalistic Iraqis, the nonsectarian Iraqis." Allawi said reports that Barbour Griffith is to receive $300,000 over six months are accurate, "but that these figures are really much less...

Next month, Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will report to Congress on the situation in my country. I expect that the testimony of these two good men will be qualified and nuanced, as politics requires. I also expect that their assessment will not capture the totality of the tragedy -- that more than four years after its liberation from Saddam Hussein, Iraq is a failing state, not providing the most basic security and services to its people and contributing to an expanding crisis in the Middle East. Let me be clear. Responsibility...

Ali Allawi's memoir The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace certainly deserves the praise and attention it has been getting (even from writers like Maureen Dowd, so eager to score cheap points against the Bush administration that—even while rebuking others for having insufficient grasp of Iraqi reality—she confused the author with his cousin Iyad Allawi and called him a "puppet" into the bargain). The book is written with a very strong combination of heart and mind by someone with an enviable command of English who both knows and cares a good deal about Iraq. He does not...

NEW YORK - In a rueful reflection on what might have been, an Iraqi government insider details in 500 pages the U.S. occupation's "shocking" mismanagement of his country — a performance so bad, he writes, that by 2007 Iraqis had "turned their backs on their would-be liberators." "The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order," Ali A. Allawi concludes in "The Occupation of Iraq," newly published by Yale University Press. Allawi writes with authority as a member of that "new order," having served as Iraq's trade, defense...

Reading this engaging book is like watching a trapeze act. The writer Ali A Allawi is an American-educated Iraqi politician who served as Defense and Finance minister in post-liberation governments in Baghdad. Excluded from the new Cabinet of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Allawi took time to write about the tumultuous experiences of the past four years. Despite the subtitle of the book, Allawi does not argue a case for the claim that the US-led coalition and its allies, backed by the overwhelming majority of the people of Iraq, have already lost the peace. Allawi shows that the war achieved all...

BAGHDAD - Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite just back from barnstorming for support among Sunni Arab leaders across the Middle East, appears determined to make another run at the premiership. His platform: Iraq cannot survive under the current Shiite leadership, and Sunnis must have a much larger role in government. The Sunni-dominated Arab League believes this, as well, but the idea is opposed by the Shiite-led government in Iraq. Most Shiite lawmakers cannot abide Allawi's secular positions and it appears unlikely he could form a sufficiently large parliamentary coalition to retake the prime minister's office. Iraq's...

<p>Ayad Allawi says he dreamed for years of two things -- toppling Saddam Hussein and establishing a democracy in Iraq. As an opposition leader and then interim prime minister, he helped achieve both goals. But as he prepares to leave office, Allawi worries that his country remains on the edge of a precipice.</p>

The government of Iraq is secretly holding a Baathist cabal of military officers it claims attempted a coup against Prime Minister al-Maliki. The plotters were rounded up July 5 with the help of American military authorities after the Iraqi government's security warning center sent word to Mr. Maliki, who was in Kuwait on his first official visit as head of state, two highly placed Iraqi sources said. The prime minister quickly canceled a scheduled trip to Amman, Jordan, and returned to Baghdad to attend to the matter. At the time, Mr. Maliki's staff told reporters that the prime minister was...

Dr. Iyad Allawi has been chosen as Secretary General of Iraqi National Security Council, this was revealed by Iraqi Parliament.

The trouble with failed politicians is that they get caught in a timewarp. Fifteen months ago Iyad Allawi lost power in Iraq's first democratic elections for generations. Two months earlier John Kerry failed in his attempt to oust a President he thought he was destined to beat. Allawi claims that Iraq stands on the brink of a civil war. He is six to nine months out of date. That's when the violence in post-Saddam Iraq peaked - in the summer to autumn of last year. Kerry endorsed Allawi's position, quite falsely claiming in an interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN...

One of Iraq's most pro-western figures and an ex-prime minister yesterday became the first of its leaders to express what most of his compatriots fear: the country is in the grip of a "terrible" civil war. John Reid and Iyad Allawi Defence Secretary John Reid meets with Iyad Allawi Iyad Allawi's acknowledgement of the violence sweeping the nation was not the sort of tribute America or Britain were hoping for on the eve of today's third anniversary of their invasion. John Reid, the Defence Secretary, who was visiting British troops in Basra yesterday, had argued that those predicting that Iraq...

IRAQ `IN THE GRIP OF CIVIL WAR' Sat Mar 18 2006 20:41:50 ET Iraq is in the grip of civil war, the country's former prime minister will insist on Sunday. Iyad Allawi warned the violence was reaching the point of no return and Europe and the USA would not be spared the consequences. British ministers have repeatedly denied civil war is either imminent or inevitable in Iraq. But former interim prime minister Mr Allawi said: ``It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if...

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and former Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, right, leave the Prime Minister's office after a meeting, in central Baghdad, Iraq Friday, Feb. 11, 2005. Secular and tough-minded, Ayad Allawi seems the perfect U.S. choice to run Iraq's security forces. But many fellow Shiites have never forgiven Allawi for decisions taken when he was prime minister and seem ready to fight to keep him on the political sidelines.

The Talk Shows Sunday, February 12th, 2006 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sen. George Allen, R-Va.; Rev. Joseph Lowery; author Ron Christie; National Air and Space Museum geologist John Grant. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.; Reps. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., Jane Harman, D-Calif. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. THIS WEEK (ABC): Rice; Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.; Lynn Swann, former pro football player and Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate; actress Sigourney Weaver. LATE EDITION (CNN) :...

Secular and tough-minded, Ayad Allawi seems the perfect U.S. choice to run Iraq's security forces. But many fellow Shiites have never forgiven Allawi for decisions taken when he was prime minister and seem ready to fight to keep him on the political sidelines. "Allawi taking any of the key Cabinet jobs is not just a red line for us," said Bahaa al-Aaraji, a Shiite politician. "It's a red line painted with blood." What to do with Allawi is among several contentious issues as Iraqis begin talks on forming a new government. That process will accelerate after the election commission Friday...

The Suuni choose Allawi as their leader, the Kurds unite their administrations. Stage two of the current phase of the political in Iraq which we anticipated a few days ago has just begun and its beginning is marked by the emergence of a new large political bloc. The new bloc was announced today in Baghdad after the largest three blocs of Maram-the Iraqi list, the Accord Front and al-Mutlaq’s Dialogue Front-signed an agreement to form one unified political body. This agreement will grant the new political body a significant political weight with a total of approximately 80 seats in the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — FNC's Dana Lewis It was all positive on election day in Iraq. After all how should we, could we, report it any differently. Violence? All those threats from Al Qaeda to blow up everything and everyone? There were only 14 minor attacks on polling stations. Mostly drive by shootings that didn’t result in voting disruptions. A bomb in Mosul killed one man. A rocket in the Green Zone, which rattled the ground where I stood doing a live report for FOX News at 7 a.m. as the polls opened, injured three people. But over all? Peaceful. And...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Angry Shiites marched Wednesday and set fire to the offices of a secular politician after a Sunni Arab guest criticized Iraq's Shiite religious leaders during an Al-Jazeera talk show. Al-Rubaei made his comments during the "Opposite Direction" program shown Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon on Al-Jazeera. Hours later, thousands of people chanted anti-Al-Jazeera slogans in the streets of the Baghdad neighborhoods of Sadr City and Karradah, and in the southern cities of Najaf and Karbala. The demonstrations, which turned into political rallies, threatened to further polarize Thursday's parliamentary elections after angry Shiites in the southern city of...

Amadiyah (AsiaNews) – On the eve of parliamentary elections, Christians and Muslims find themselves at a crossroads which can take them beyond sectarian interests in order to support the country’s reconstruction and a coexistence that is free of fearing the other. This according to Monsignor Rabban Al Qas, Chaldean Bishop of Amadiyah and Erbil, in an interview with AsiaNews. Bishop Rabban criticizes the “political narcissism” of Christians who confine themselves to various confessional parties and that of Muslims who prefer to support Islamic unity at the expense of national interests. According to the Bishop, the candidate who holds most promise...

The priests have long since departed, but the elite Jesuit high school called Baghdad College still looms over the swirling world of Iraqi politics. The three Iraqi political leaders considered most likely to end up as prime minister after nationwide elections this week - Ayad Allawi, Ahmad Chalabi and Adelabdul Mahdi - were schoolmates at the all-boys English-language school in the late 1950's, fortunate members of the Baghdad elite that governed Iraq until successive waves of revolution and terror swept it away. The boys of Baghdad College, now men in their 60's back from exile, are ready to assume their...

BAGHDAD, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Pro-government Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim militiamen are keen to stop former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi from regaining power in this week's election, but their movement's spokesman said on Monday it would respect democracy. Allawi is campaigning on a cross-sectarian ticket for Thursday's parliamentary election, picking up votes from the Sunni Arab minority and secular Shi'ites like himself with a vow to ban Islamist militias he says could drag Iraq into civil war. Allawi, who hopes to lead a coalition government, accuses militias of trying to assassinate him. He also says they are behind abductions and torture...

Iyad Allawi reckons he could be Iraq's prime minister again after Thursday's election -- and this time, he says, it won't be Americans who put him there but, possibly, old enemies whose rebel towns he once ordered bombed. "They know I wasn't after them," he said in an interview, chuckling at the popularity his strongman image has lately won him in a town where a year ago he gave U.S. troops the go-ahead to crush a revolt by minority Sunni Arab guerrillas. "Saddam is finished," he said. "If you want to bring in a person like Bin Laden, we'll fight...

Iyad Allawi threw a garden party at his Baghdad headquarters for tribal sheiks from southern Iraq. "I have very extreme forces who are assembled against me," Allawi, 60, said later. "They would like to get rid of me physically, let alone politically." The former interim prime minister is provocative indeed. His comeback bid in Thursday's national parliamentary election is seen as the biggest threat to Iraq's religious-based Shiite Muslim establishment. "He probably is the most visible representative" of secular, middle-class Iraqis, said Wayne White, a former Iraq analyst for the State Department now with the Middle East Institute, a nonpartisan...

Gunmen have set ablaze an office belonging to the Iraqi National Reconciliation Movement of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. The gunmen overnight sprayed bullets in the air and torched the office in the Shi'ite city of Karbala, 80 kilometers south of Baghdad.

SECULAR VOICE: Tired of sectarian violence, more Iraqis appear to be turning to secular parties like the one led by former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. More Iraqis look to vote secular Dec. 15. Many see the nonsectarian parties as the best alternative for a unified and stable Iraq. Like Ali, more Iraqis appear to be turning to one of the Dec. 15 election's secular parties as the best alternative for a unified and stable Iraq. Mostly it's better educated Iraqis or those from smaller ethnic groups who are making this choice, so their prospects for equaling the voting power...

Iraq's former prime minister Iyad Allawi said gunmen tried to assassinate him in Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrine on Sunday, forcing him to cut short an election campaign visit pursued by an angry mob. "It appeared to be an assassination attempt," the secular Shi'ite said; 60-70 men in black, armed with guns and knives, set upon his small party as he prayed at the Imam Ali mosque. Police said Allawi's group was attacked by men with batons and fled the shrine under a hail of rocks, tomatoes and shoes -- the latter a mark of grave insult in Iraqi culture. Allawi,...

The global media is finally taking the pronouncements of former Iraq Prime Minister Iyad Allawi seriously - at least as long as his comments seem to undermine the war on terror. The Iraqi police "are doing the same as (in) Saddam Hussein's time and worse," complained Allawi, referring to the brutality of the old regime in an interview with the London Observer. "These are the precise reasons why we fought Saddam Hussein and now we are seeing the same things." Within hours Allawi's comments had been picked up by hundreds of newspapers around the world. In June 2004, however, when...

LONDON, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Abuse of human rights in Iraq is as bad now as it was under Saddam Hussein, if not worse, former prime minister Iyad Allawi said in an interview published on Sunday. "People are doing the same as (in) Saddam Hussein's time and worse. It is an appropriate comparison," Allawi told British newspaper The Observer

LONDON, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Abuse of human rights in Iraq is as bad now as it was under Saddam Hussein, if not worse, former prime minister Iyad Allawi said in an interview published on Sunday. "People are doing the same as (in) Saddam Hussein's time and worse. It is an appropriate comparison," Allawi told British newspaper The Observer. "People are remembering the days of Saddam," said Allawi, a secular Shi'ite and former Baathist who is standing in elections scheduled for Dec. 15. "These are the precise reasons why we fought Saddam Hussein and now we are seeing the same...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Three Iraqi men will stand trial in Germany accused of planning to kill their visiting prime minister and belonging to a terrorist group, the German prosecutor's office said on Wednesday. It said the three were members of Ansar al-Islam, which the United States calls a major insurgent group linked to al Qaeda. Two of them, named as Ata R., 31, and Mazen H., 23, are also accused of collecting and transferring funds to Iraq and Iran on behalf of the network. The third man, named as Rafik Y., 31, had phoned the others to obtain their approval...

    New Iraqi PM Not Ashamed of CIA LinksWed Jun 9, 2004 01:09 PM ET By Lin Noueihed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - New Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Wednesday he was not ashamed of having worked with the CIA and other intelligence agencies as head of an exiled group trying to destabilize Saddam Hussein's regime. "I was the head of a political organization in touch with at least 15 intelligence services across the world and in the region," Allawi said after a cabinet meeting. "We don't feel ashamed of having been in touch to liberate Iraq from the...

PARIS, 2 Oct. (IPS) Under pressures from the Americans, Israel has drastically limited the scope of its decades-long secret operations and cooperation with the Iraqi Kurds in the one hand and also a lucrative trade realized by Kurdish, Iraqi and Jordanian intermediaries, according to reports in the French centrist newspaper “Le Figaro”. As from early 2004, more than 1.200 agents from Mossad, Israel’s intelligence and secret services and the military intelligence used to operate in the Iraqi Kurdistan, training Kurdish peshmergas, or freedom fighters, and forming special commandos to face the millions of Shi’ites manipulated in one way or another...

10 days after American and Iraqi troops swept into Tal Afar to clear it of insurgent fighters, six trucks drove into the city. The drivers distributed food, water and emergency medical supplies. They also told the grateful refugees whom to thank: the former prime minister, Ayad Allawi, and his party, the Iraqi National Accord. Iraq's next election season has begun and Allawi, a former exile and American protégé, is barnstorming the region and seeking support for a broad new secular alliance that could sweep him back to power when votes are cast Dec. 15. His goal is to create a...

The next vote in Iraq is the Oct. 15 referendum on the nation's constitution, but the political elite is already turning its attention to the general elections scheduled for December. Most Iraqi politicians now expect the constitution to be approved; fears have faded that Sunni Arabs might manage to vote it down. The optimism rises from several developments. First, as more and more Sunni Arabs read the proposed text, now widely distributed, they realize it is not as bad as some of their self-styled leaders claimed. The latest suicide-killer attacks have also come as a wake-up call to Sunnis not...

AMMAN: Iraqi former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and his former defence minister are targets of an Iraqi government smear campaign inspired by neighbouring Iran, a senior Allawi aide said today. Ibrahim al-Janabi, deputy head of the National Accord Movement (Wifaq) headed by Allawi, said allegations against former defence minister Hazem Shaalan in connection with the disappearance of 1 billion dollars from his ministry were a fabrication designed to prevent secular leaders from returning to power. ''There are elements within the government that have strong ties with Iranian intelligence who seek to stir these issues,'' Janabi told Reuters in Amman. ''This...

(Q) What is your assessment of the current situation in Iraq? (A) The Iraqi situation is worrisome and among the main dangers that Iraq is going through at present are the cracks in national unity, the absence of the state's institutions, and the economic stagnation and even recession. There is no vision of how to proceed forward. Consequently, the hostile forces, whether inside or abroad, are trying to stop the cycle of development. We find today an absence of even the institutions we had built during our government's short period in office and by this; I mean the judicial, security,...

Dr. Iyad Allawi has met with the delegation of Faluja residents, who have expressed their thanks and appreciation for the efforts exerted by Dr. Iyad Allawi when he was a Prime Minister, his concern about Faluja residents, and his cashing of huge designations for the reconstruction of their city. Dr. Iyad Allawi has expressed his eagerness for spreading security in Faluja so that its residents enjoy settlement, participate in the political process and share their Iraqi brothers in constructing the new Iraq. The delegation has demanded Dr. Allawi to exert his efforts to complete the former issued decisions and procedures...

A proposal by Iraq's finance minister to reduce the enormous fuel and food subsidies that consume roughly a third of the government's budget and largely crush economic growth has been rejected by the cabinet after a recent similar move in Yemen set off fatal riots there. The subsidies, which artificially produce some of the lowest gasoline and heating fuel prices in the world and finance free basic foodstuffs, have been singled out by financial institutions both inside and outside Iraq as a crippling burden when the country is trying to create a free-market economy as it grapples with insurgent violence...

DEAD SEA, Jordan (Agencies): Iraq forecasts 10-12 per cent growth this year, still below what the economy needs to recover after decades of wars and UN sanctions, Finance Minister Ali Allawi said on Tuesday. Growth was 30-35 per cent last year, but Iraq started from a low base with the US-led invasion of 2003 and its aftermath of violence, arson and looting sending the economy into chaos, Allawi told Reuters in an interview."According to the International Monetary Fund and our own estimates we are looking at a reasonable growth rate of maybe around 10 to 12 per cent despite the...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi said he had escaped an attempt on his life during a recent visit to Lebanon. Members of the Lebanese Shiite movement Amal helped foil the attack, Allawi said at a joint press conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, although he did not say how or when it occurred. "I must thank my brothers from the Amal movement, especially the intelligence services that thwarted the attack. I owe them a lot," said Allawi, who frequently travels to Lebanon.

June 28, 2005, 1:59 PM (GMT+02:00) The speech US President George W. Bush makes Tuesday, June 28, at the elite 82nd Airborne Division’s home at Fort Bragg, N.C. is fraught with symbolism. The venue is the home base of the division that has born the brunt of the two-and-a half year Iraq war. The date is the first anniversary of the transfer of post-Saddam government to Iraqi sovereignty. One year ago, US administrator Paul Bremer handed the keys of government to interim prime minister Iyad Allawi amid high hopes of a new Iraq. Allawi remains Washington’s key man in Baghdad,...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The militants crossing into Iraq from Syria are not backed by the Syrian government, Iraq's former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Monday. Allawi, who headed the Iraqi government from June 2004 until April, came to Cairo to raise support for his plan to hold a pan-Iraqi conference to end the insurgency. "The answer to the tension in Iraq cannot be through a military solution or by force alone," Allawi said after talks with President Hosni Mubarak. Last week, the United States and Iraq reiterated that Syria was not doing enough to stop foreign fighters from...

THE editor of Melbourne's The Age newspaper has defended Australia's Journalist of the Year, Paul McGeough, in the wake of revelations that he may have erred in two significant reports he filed from Iraq. McGeough claimed in an article published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that former Iraqi interim leader Iyad Allawi shot dead as many as six prisoners in June last year. But the story was discredited by a report yesterday that Iraqi officials and US special forces bodyguards assigned to Allawi had passed lie detector tests in denying the murder allegations. "My view is that...

A SERIES of arrests in Spain, Germany, France and Holland has revealed a European terror network that recruits fighters and suicide bombers and sends them into Iraq.For two years recruiters have been providing fake documents, training and finance for the fighters, communicating secretly over the internet and liaising with cells based in Syria. Despite much closer links between intelligence and law enforcement agencies across Europe, experts say that the terrorists are moving between European countries to avoid detection. “The terrorists are operating internationally, even if the law enforcement agencies are a long way behind them,” said M J Gohel, chief...

...With media coverage of Iraq focused almost exclusively on car bombs and suicide attacks, it would be hard to attract international attention to other realities there. Yet without attention to economic reconstruction and political institution-building, the current almost daily fare of car bombs and suicide attacks is likely to continue for many more months, if not years. There will be no security for as long as there is no political and economic turnaround in Iraq. Much has already happened on the political front, notably last January's landmark general elections. But a culture of despotism with centuries-deep roots cannot be transformed...

...With media coverage of Iraq focused almost exclusively on car bombs and suicide attacks, it would be hard to attract international attention to other realities there. Yet without attention to economic reconstruction and political institution-building, the current almost daily fare of car bombs and suicide attacks is likely to continue for many more months, if not years. There will be no security for as long as there is no political and economic turnaround in Iraq. Much has already happened on the political front, notably last January's landmark general elections. But a culture of despotism with centuries-deep roots cannot be transformed...

Baghdad, Iraq, Jun. 6 (UPI) -- The former Baathist party member and interim leader of Iraq Iyad Allawi reportedly is considering a political comeback. Allawi was installed last year by the United States and Britain as Iraq's interim prime minister but was soundly defeated in January's elections. Now, however, there is already nostalgia for his tenure as insurgents and suicide bombers disrupt daily life in Baghdad, The Telegraph reported Monday. "When we were in power we had a program that looked beyond elections," Allawi told the newspaper. "Security was better in our time, electricity was better and services were improving....