[NYTr] Battling Puppets - Allawi Says al Maliki Acting "Like Saddam"

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The Telegraph - Sep 28, 2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/28/wiraq128.xml

Iraq's Nouri al-Maliki 'copies Saddam Hussein'

By Damien McElroy in Baghdad

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.

He claimed that Mr Maliki commands his own intelligence and security 
agencies.

"This is what we call a system of intimidation as it used to happen in 
Saddam's times," said Mr Allawi, who was interim prime minister between 
2004 and 2005. "It is the same system, even worse.

"This is how the Ba'ath Party took over in the coup of 1968. There was a 
kind of coalition but gradually they built their own security and their 
own intelligence and their own hit teams."
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A report on Iraq's security services for the US Congress published this 
month apparently corroborated Mr Allawi's claims.

It said: "Parallel lines of direct communications with military units 
have been established under the control of the prime minister.

"He is perceived by many as having created a second, and politically 
motivated, chain of command."

President George W Bush reiterated his support for Mr Maliki this week, 
even though the 17-month-old government has failed to secure a passage 
for major legislation.

Almost half the cabinet resigned this summer and Mr Maliki has failed to 
recruit replacements, despite months of negotiations.

Dr Allawi called for Mr Maliki to be replaced by a caretaker prime 
minister and early elections before a renewed spiral of violence  
countered by America's "surge" of troops  grips Iraq.

Despite having helped to persuade tribal leaders to fight with US forces 
against al-Qa'eda, he warned that former insurgents would fight again if 
they were not quickly given a voice in national politics.

"If we keep on losing opportunities and chances and only plan for the 
immediate future, this will backfire and destroy Iraq.

"We should not miss the great number of Iraqis still outside the 
political process," he said. "Go to the extent of having a caretaker 
government to have early elections where all have a chance to 
participate in a newly formed parliament."

A former Ba'athist official, Dr Allawi headed the Iraqi National Accord 
group, which passed intelligence to British and other Western agencies 
that Saddam's forces could deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes.

This claim was reflected in the British government's dossier on Iraq 
before the invasion of 2003.

His links to the Iraqi establishment and foreign intelligence agencies 
made him the obvious choice of the US-led coalition when sovereignty was 
transferred in 2004.

Dr Allawi's Iraqi National List secured less than 15 per cent of the 
vote after a CIA plan to spend tens of millions of dollars supporting 
its allies in 2005 was shelved.

Western diplomats in Baghdad play down Dr Allawi's chances of a 
comeback. One Western diplomat said: "He is equally mistrusted by all 
the factions, so I don't see him building a working coalition."