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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 He is six to nine months out of date.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...