Prime Minister Allawi promises security, must perform

BAGHDAD – Iyad Allawi can earn the respect of Iraqis if he can match his tough talk with effective action to stem the violence blighting their lives.

He heads an interim government that will try to convince his weary compatriots they really run their own country, a task made more difficult given the important constraints on its power. His administration, which formally took control of Iraq on Monday, is barred from making long-term policy decisions and does not have control over the more than 160 000 foreign troops who remain in the country.Marked for assassination by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Allawi has sworn to crush the foreign fighters and die-hard Baathists he blames for the killings, sabotage and suicide bombings that have scarred the run-up to the handover.”These are isolated incidents,” Allawi declared after a wave of attacks on Iraq’s nascent security forces that killed about 100 people in mainly Sunni Muslim cities on Thursday.”We have been expecting this escalation and we are expecting more escalation in the days ahead.”A secular Shi’ite who opposed Saddam Hussein from exile, Allawi was named prime minister on May 28, though he was not seen as the first choice of the UN envoy who was helping US and Iraqi officials pick the interim government.Allawi’s challenge is to convince Iraqis that the new government is no mere tool of the Americans, as many viewed the now-defunct Iraqi Governing Council of which he was a member.The 58-year-old politician has no significant following in Iraq, where until recently few people had heard of him after his decades in exile, mostly in Britain and Jordan.Some Iraqis distrust him as a returned exile who has not denied his links to US and British intelligence.Others are wary of his past ties to Saddam’s Baath Party and former army officers, though some see these as useful credentials.Many appear willing to give him a chance to show what he can do against Sunni insurgents, foreign militants and armed criminals who have defied US military might.”Allawi seems like he could be strong.We need someone who imposes security the way it was done before,” said Qays Ahmed (28) a jobless Iraqi, after a Baghdad grenade attack this week.Allawi’s ambition is to build Iraqi forces that can replace the foreign, mainly US, troops as soon as possible.Allawi will seek to convince the Sunni minority, privileged under Saddam, that it has a place in the new Iraq alongside majority Shi’ites eager for power and minority Kurds determined to hang on to their hard-won autonomy in the north.He has described as mistaken the US decision in May 2003 to dissolve Iraq’s armed forces, which scattered after their defeat in the US-led invasion launched two months earlier.Allawi wants former officers not directly tainted by the cruelties of Saddam’s rule to join the new army and help fight the guerrillas who now denounce Iraq’s fledgling security forces as “apostate” collaborators with the Americans.Allawi, who said on Monday he was committed to holding elections in January as scheduled, can draw on the international legitimacy derived from this month’s unanimously adopted UN Security Council resolution endorsing plans for Iraq’s political transition.Perhaps more important, it has also won cautious backing from Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.US and British officials hope Allawi’s strategy can erode popular support for an insurgency driven partly by Iraqi nationalist fury at the humiliation of foreign occupation.But Allawi also faces deadly Sunni militant groups, such as Zarqawi’s Tawhid and Jihad, which have sworn to kill him, root out foreign influence and restore an Islamic caliphate in Iraq.Allawi left Iraq in 1971 to pursue medical studies and turned against the Baath party.He survived an axe attack by agents sent by a vengeful Saddam to his London home in 1978.Backed by Britain’s MI6 and the CIA, Allawi formed the Iraqi National Accord, composed of ex-Baathists and disaffected officers, which staged a failed coup against Saddam in 1996.- Nampa-ReutersHis administration, which formally took control of Iraq on Monday, is barred from making long-term policy decisions and does not have control over the more than 160 000 foreign troops who remain in the country.Marked for assassination by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Allawi has sworn to crush the foreign fighters and die-hard Baathists he blames for the killings, sabotage and suicide bombings that have scarred the run-up to the handover.”These are isolated incidents,” Allawi declared after a wave of attacks on Iraq’s nascent security forces that killed about 100 people in mainly Sunni Muslim cities on Thursday.”We have been expecting this escalation and we are expecting more escalation in the days ahead.”A secular Shi’ite who opposed Saddam Hussein from exile, Allawi was named prime minister on May 28, though he was not seen as the first choice of the UN envoy who was helping US and Iraqi officials pick the interim government.Allawi’s challenge is to convince Iraqis that the new government is no mere tool of the Americans, as many viewed the now-defunct Iraqi Governing Council of which he was a member.The 58-year-old politician has no significant following in Iraq, where until recently few people had heard of him after his decades in exile, mostly in Britain and Jordan.Some Iraqis distrust him as a returned exile who has not denied his links to US and British intelligence.Others are wary of his past ties to Saddam’s Baath Party and former army officers, though some see these as useful credentials.Many appear willing to give him a chance to show what he can do against Sunni insurgents, foreign militants and armed criminals who have defied US military might.”Allawi seems like he could be strong.We need someone who imposes security the way it was done before,” said Qays Ahmed (28) a jobless Iraqi, after a Baghdad grenade attack this week.Allawi’s ambition is to build Iraqi forces that can replace the foreign, mainly US, troops as soon as possible.Allawi will seek to convince the Sunni minority, privileged under Saddam, that it has a place in the new Iraq alongside majority Shi’ites eager for power and minority Kurds determined to hang on to their hard-won autonomy in the north.He has described as mistaken the US decision in May 2003 to dissolve Iraq’s armed forces, which scattered after their defeat in the US-led invasion launched two months earlier.Allawi wants former officers not directly tainted by the cruelties of Saddam’s rule to join the new army and help fight the guerrillas who now denounce Iraq’s fledgling security forces as “apostate” collaborators with the Americans.Allawi, who said on Monday he was committed to holding elections in January as scheduled, can draw on the international legitimacy derived from this month’s unanimously adopted UN Security Council resolution endorsing plans for Iraq’s political transition.Perhaps more important, it has also won cautious backing from Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.US and British officials hope Allawi’s strategy can erode popular support for an insurgency driven partly by Iraqi nationalist fury at the humiliation of foreign occupation.But Allawi also faces deadly Sunni militant groups, such as Zarqawi’s Tawhid and Jihad, which have sworn to kill him, root out foreign influence and restore an Islamic caliphate in Iraq.Allawi left Iraq in 1971 to pursue medical studies and turned against the Baath party.He survived an axe attack by agents sent by a vengeful Saddam to his London home in 1978.Backed by Britain’s MI6 and the CIA, Allawi formed the Iraqi National Accord, composed of ex-Baathists and disaffected officers, which staged a failed coup against Saddam in 1996.- Nampa-Reuters