[NYTr] Behind Allawi's Bid for Power

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Earlier report (Washington Post, Aug 27, 2007)

Iraq: Allawi Says US Lobby Firm to Help Push Maliki Out
http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20070827/067233.html


Newsweek - Aug 29, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20502632/site/newsweek/?from=rss

Behind Allawi's Bid for Power

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? 

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball 
Newsweek

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 with
Barbour Griffith & Rogers—a firm with close connections to the Bush
administration and the Republican Party.

But Allawi—who in the past was supported by the CIA—refused to identify
his financial backers, citing “security reasons.” Asked whether he
would name the people who are underwriting his lobbying campaign in
Washington, Allawi replied, “Of course not. They may be killed by the
Iranians, they may be killed by the sectarian people … These are
details I am not interested in answering.”

While acknowledging the need to amend their filing with Justice,
however, Barbour Griffith officials may not shed much additional light
on a lobbying blitz that has injected new elements of controversy into
the Washington debate over Iraq policy.

One change being considered by Barbour Griffith is to simply list
Allawi’s political party, the Iraqi National Accord, rather than Allawi
himself, as its client. That move may bring it into compliance with the
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), the firm’s lawyers believe.
Under the law, lobbying firms are usually permitted to list foreign
political parties as their clients without identifying the financial
sponsors of those parties.

The firm’s original filing a week and a half ago listed Allawi himself
as the client. But that filing drew scrutiny from lawyers in the
Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration Unit after Allawi told
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer last Sunday that an unidentified Iraqi financial
supporter was paying the cost of his lobbying efforts. “When you think
about the purpose of the law, who’s paying the tab is what it’s all
about,” said Mark MacDougall, a Washington lawyer who is a specialist
in foreign-agents registration law.

After firm officials met with Justice Department lawyers Wednesday to
discuss the disclosure issue, the firm made its first public comment on
the filing dispute.  "We are working with the Department of Justice to
ensure we are meeting the requirements of the statute," said Walker
Roberts, a spokesman for Barbour Griffith.

The retention of Barbour Griffith was first disclosed last week by
Christina Davidson, who writes a blog called Iraqslogger. To many
Capitol Hill staffers and Iraq war pundits, the hiring of the firm
appeared to be an extraordinary development, part of an attempt by
Allawi and his backers to undermine and ultimately topple the Iraqi
government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in the corridors of
Washington, rather than through the political process in Baghdad.

No sooner did Allawi hire Barbour Griffith two weeks ago than
congressional staffers said they began to be bombarded with e-mails
from Allawi (from an Internet domain registered by the lobbying firm)
featuring news stories that depict the Maliki government as hopelessly
deadlocked and riddled by sectarian militias. “All the e-mails make the
Iraqi government look bad,” said one congressional staffer who asked
not to be publicly identified talking about the Iraq issues.

The e-mails included an Allawi-drafted "Six Point Plan for Iraq," which
outlines various steps the former Iraqi leader would pursue if he were
returned to power in Baghdad. Among the more controversial
recommendations in the plan are suggestions that a "State of Emergency"
be declared for up to 2-3 years "until security is restored." The plan
flatly recommends that the current Iraqi government be removed "through
Parliamentary means" because the "sectarian politics of the Maliki
Government ... are destroying Iraq."

Adding further intrigue to the lobbying campaign was the disclosure
that the Barbour Griffith principal overseeing the firm’s Allawi
account was former ambassador Robert D. Blackwill—the former Bush White
House deputy national-security adviser in charge of Iraq policy, who
later served as U.S. special envoy to that country.

Documents filed by Barbour Griffith with Justice show that Blackwill
personally signed the firm’s contract with Allawi on Aug. 20, stating
that he will “lead the team” that will assist “Dr. Allawi and his
moderate Iraqi colleagues as they undertake this work.”

In light of Blackwill’s close ties to Bush White House policymakers,
his role has lead to speculation that the retention of Barbour Griffith
was a move at least implicitly endorsed, if not encouraged, by some
elements of the administration that are fed up with Maliki. While the
White House has been critical of Maliki, they maintain official support
for his government and have had no comment on Allawi’s campaign.

But as described by Allawi, the arrangement may also have been part of
an aggressive campaign by Barbour Griffith to solicit lucrative foreign
business.

Blackwill himself has not returned phone calls since news of the
contract surfaced. Allawi, in an interview Wednesday with NEWSWEEK
conducted by telephone from Amman, indicated that Blackwill—whom he
described as a “dear friend”—was the one who actually raised the idea
that the former Iraqi prime minister hire the firm during a recent
lunch the two of them had in Europe.

“He contacted me,” Allawi said. “We were having lunch … He spoke to me
and he said … there is a vacuum in Washington, and we will be able to
help and assist. We know your views. We know the views of your people
and we are ready to help in getting your message across to the United
States.”

Allawi initially said the lobbying campaign was intended to prod the
Bush administration to put “pressure” on the Iraqi government to
“stabilize the country” and take more aggressive steps to achieve
“reconciliation” between rival Shiites and Sunni factions. But his
comments left little doubt that he did not believe Maliki’s government
was interested or even capable of performing such a task. “As you know,
the militias now are controlling the government,” said Allawi. “I don’t
think the government is capable or willing or wanting to achieve proper
reconciliation … We don’t have a country. The country is in chaos and
it’s in the middle of a civil war … [Maliki] has been ruling for a year
and a half … The government has not been able to do anything.”

A secular Shiite and former Baath Party member, Allawi left Iraq in the
1970s and became a prominent exile leader opposed to the regime of
Saddam Hussein. He set up the Iraqi National Accord, a London-based
exile group, which received financial support from both the British
Secret Intelligence Service (colloquially known as M.I.6) and the CIA.
Over time, CIA officials pushed Allawi as a more acceptable and
reliable potential successor to Saddam than Ahmed Chalabi, a rival
Iraqi exile (and Allawi relative) whose ambitions to succeed Saddam
were heavily promoted by neoconservative intellectuals and civilian
Pentagon aides to former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

But Allawi, like Chalabi, was also linked to bogus pre-war intelligence
about Saddam’s purported weapons of mass destruction and ties to
terrorism. As NEWSWEEK reported, one of Allawi's previous Washington
lobbyists once acknowledged that an associate of his group may have
been responsible for feeding officials in the government of British
Prime Minister Tony Blair information—subsequently discredited—claiming
that Saddam could launch WMD attacks on British troops in 45 minutes.
The former lobbyist also confirmed that Allawi's group was also
responsible for feeding the British media a document purporting to show
that Muhammad Atta had undergone terrorist training in Baghdad a few
months before he led the 9/11 attacks—a claim that was instantly
ridiculed by official sources on both sides of the Atlantic.

Officials familiar with U.S. and U.K. intelligence activities denied
that either British or American agencies had any connection to Allawi's
recent hiring of Washington lobbyists or his current campaign to depose
the Iraqi government and replace Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Any
suggestion of CIA support for Allawi's current lobbying activities is
"ludicrous," a U.S. intelligence official said. A British official said
that M.I.6 officials "distanced themselves" from Allawi several years
ago.