British-trained neurologist Iyad Allawi (born 1945) came to the attention of the world when he accepted the position of interim prime minister of Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Allawi, who studied neurology in Great Britain and actually spent about half his life in the United Kingdom, has dual Iraqi and British citizenship. After leaving Iraq as a self-imposed exile in the mid-1970s, he organized the Iraqi National Accord, a group that gained financial support from Great Britain and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), among others. A believer in the future of Iraq, Allawi hoped to bring it out of the hands of the terrorists that plagued it.
Born in 1945, Allawi was born into a well-to-do Shia Muslim merchant family. Shiite Muslims make up two-thirds of Iraq; the remaining third are predominately Sunnis, although a small number of Kurds also occupy the country. Allawi came by his interest in politics through his family, particularly his grandfather, who helped with the negotiations to release Iraq from British control, and his father, a member of the Iraqi parliament. During his college years, while studying medicine in Iraq, Allawi met Saddam Hussein and the two joined the Ba'ath party, which gained prominence in the mid-1960s through its advocacy of secular rather than Muslim governments. Allawi rose quickly in the party's ranks, and was an active supporter of Ba'athist activities even when the new party was banned. Although the initial goals of the Ba'ath party focused on setting up socialist, secular governments in the Middle East, those aims soon changed, particularly after Hussein took control in the early 1970s.
In 1971 Allawi moved to Great Britain, where he continued his medical education. While in school in London, he remained active in Iraqi politics, and was president of the Iraqi Student Union in Europe. Returning to Iraq following graduation, he established a career as a neurologist and also resumed a prominent place in the Ba'ath party. He soon became disillusioned with the party, however, due to the direction in which Hussein was taking it, and he resigned from the party in 1975. Although Hussein pressured Allawi to rejoin the Ba'ath party, Allawi refused and left the country in self-imposed exile. Returning to London, he became a Ba'athist target, and in February of 1978 he was attacked in his home by an assassin Hussein presumably sent after him. Attacking Allawi with an ax in the dead of night while the former Ba'athist was in bed, the assassin then left, believing Allawi to be dead. Although wounded critically in the head, right leg, and chest, Allawi survived the attack and spent almost a year in the hospital recovering.
Dedicated to Toppling Hussein Regime
Even before his release from the hospital following the attack, Allawi started a movement to organize other exiles from the Ba'athist regime into the Iraqi National Accord (INA), his ultimate aim to remove Hussein from power. While primary supporters of the INA were the British government, the organization was also covertly supported by Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the CIA. Allawi's group was made up primarily of former military personnel who had defected from Hussein's dictatorship. The INA gained in power, and in 1996 the group's leadership believed the organization was strong enough to mount a coup against Hussein. Unfortunately, the attempt proved unsuccessful, and the INA leadership was forced to rethink its approach.
Before the INA could initiate a second coup attempt, the United States initiated its War on Terror in response to the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001. Eventually focusing its efforts on the potential threat posed by Hussein due to his link with terrorist organizations, in March of 2003 the Unites States managed to topple Hussein's dictatorship. The U.S. government then set up a Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to work with the Iraqi people to establish an interim government in preparation for bringing about democratic elections. Allawi was invited to sit on the CPA council charged with the selection of an interim prime minister scheduled to take power on June 30, 2004. In May of 2004 the council chose Allawi to be the interim leader. "Even though he is a secular Shiite, Allawi won the tacit approval of the top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani," Alissa J. Rubin and Maggie Farley reported in the Houston Chronicle Online. The journalists deemed this "a crucial step since Shiites are a majority of the population," and noted that the choice of Allawi was also due to the fact that his organization, the INA, "has also worked closely with Kurds and Sunni Muslims."
Allawi's speech to the Iraqi people early in June, 2003, was the first time a leader had spoken to the country since Hussein's fall. The country was still occupied by U.S. troops at this time, and many Iraqis were unhappy with this situation, despite the promise of democratic elections. According to Hamza Hendawi of Newsday Online, Allawi vocally "defended the continued presence of 138,000 U.S. troops and thousands of troops from other nations on Iraqi soil even after the handover of sovereignty. 'The targeting of the multinational forces under the leadership of the United States to force them to leave Iraq would inflict a major disaster on Iraq, especially before the completion of the building of security and military institutions,' " Allawi was quoted as stating.
A Dangerous Undertaking
On June 28, 2004, two days earlier than publically announced, Allawi was sworn in as interim prime minister of Iraq, along with 31 members of an Iraqi governing council. Not surprisingly given the volatility of the region, his new post was considered one of the most dangerous political appointments in the world at the time, and several attempts to kill Allawi would subsequently be made. Most of the world, however, considered Allawi's ascendancy to be a good sign for the future of the country. "He has been a strong supporter of rebuilding an Iraqi army and building up other internal forces to restore order," noted a contributor to ABC News Online. However, some within Iraq expressed suspicion of their new prime minister. Because he had ties with the United States, it was believed that he was merely acting as a puppet leader who would acquiesce to U.S. interests in Iraq's oil resources. Although the U.S. government denied any part in the selection of Allawi, several Iraqis remained skeptical. As Aparisim Ghosh wrote in Time magazine, Sadoun al-Dulame, executive director of the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies, said of the appointment, "Judging by the way he was selected, I don't expect much from him. . . . He will be a puppet for the people who gave him the job."
Set Date for Elections
Allawi's term as interim prime minister of Iraq was not a quiet one. Insurgents unhappy about the new system of government being established continued attacking and bombing sites around the country almost immediately. Vocal and armed opposition groups rose up in key sites around the country, such as Fallujah, where the new Iraqi army - still in its infancy and being trained by foreign groups - alongside U.S. troops, fought deadly battles with the insurgents that had made that city one of their main strongholds. Allawi announced to the country that the interim government would not be cowed by terrorists and would implement new security measures, including resolutions establishing the right to impose martial law or curfews in order to help rid Iraq of insurgent-sponsored violence. Allawi's government also announced the creation of a new counter-terrorist intelligence unit, the General Security Directorate. The insurgents' response was predictable: on July 18, a mere 20 days after Allawi became interim leader of Iraq, a $285,000 reward was offered by Iraqi militants for anyone who could kill him.
One of the first things Allawi and his government established after taking office was the date on which democratic elections would be held; this date was set as January 30, 2005. As a spate of attacks followed this announcement, many groups discussed postponing the elections. When Allawi visited the United States in September of 2004 to meet with President George W. Bush, he formally thanked the United States for its help in ridding Iraq of Hussein, and also reaffirmed that terrorist attacks would not prevent Iraq from holding elections in January of 2005. A December deadline was established for candidates to petition to be on the ballot for the position of Iraqi prime minister.
In December of 2004 Allawi announced his decision to bring criminal proceedings against top officials of the Hussein regime. A Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service contributor quoted Allawi as stating: "I can now tell you clearly and precisely that, God willing, next week the trials of the symbols of the former regime will start, one by one, so that justice can take its path in Iraq." Not everyone thought this was a good idea, many noting Allawi's position as interim rather than elected leader of Iraq. Until an officially elected government was in place, many questioned the wisdom of putting such important criminals on trial. As a New York Times contributor editorialized: "Marching top officials of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-based Ba'athist dictatorship through an Iraqi courtroom a little more than five weeks before the election of a legitimate Iraqi government is such a breathtakingly bad idea that you would almost think it had been dreamed up by the leaders of the insurgency."
Decided to Stand for Election
While on a trip to Berlin, Germany, in December, Allawi learned of a new plot to assassinate him. Police arrested four men in connection with the plot, all of whom were part of the militant group Ansar al-Islam. The group was thought to be working closely with the terrorist group Al Qaeda and insurgent kingpin Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Upon his return to Iraq, Allawi denounced this attempt and in reaction announced that he was putting himself forward as a candidate for prime minister. When the entire roster of candidates was unveiled, Allawi's main opponent proved to be the Grand Ayatollah Ali al Husseini al-Sistani, Iraq's most respected Shiite cleric and a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, who put forth a roster of candidates that included interim vice president Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Although al-Sistani had initially approved of the choice of Allawi as interim prime minister, after Allawi spoke out against the United Iraqi Alliance due to their advocacy of a religious-based government his support was withdrawn. In fact, Allawi based his platform on his long-held belief that a secular government suited Iraq's multicultural nation better. As the deadline for submitting candidate's names approached, bombings increased. "As we get closer to the elections there will be an escalation in violence," predicted Allawi, as quoted in the New York Times. "We know we will pay a heavy price until we win, and we are going to win."
On January 30, 2005, over sixty percent of the Iraqi people bravely faced threats of violence and went to polls throughout Iraq and throughout the world to elect a prime minister and a 275-member National Assembly. It would be that assembly's duty, according to Hannah Allam in the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, "to draft a constitution and help supervise national elections for a permanent government" by the end of 2005. Candidates for the new governing body formed slates along ethnic or religious lines, and the political structure designed for the new government encouraged groups such as the influential United Iraqi Alliance to form politically beneficial alliances. As election day approached, fears of violence had pervaded not only the country, but the world. While Allawi had suggested spreading the elections over a two- to three-week period in order to better deal with security concerns, that proved to be unfeasible. Meanwhile, U.S. troops transported millions of dollars of voting equipment into the country only a week before the elections were to take place, its late arrival assuring that it could not be destroyed before it could be used.
In the weeks following the elections, the voting tallies showed the United Iraqi Alliance with a majority of seats in Iraq's new National Assembly. In the race for prime minister, the election results did not favor Allawi, who came in a distant third after United Iraqi Alliance candidates al-Jaafari and Ahmad Chalabi; al-Jaafari was later chosen by his party to be Iraq's next prime minister. Despite this setback, it was predicted by analysts that the interim prime minister would gain an influential appointment somewhere within the new, democratically elected Iraqi government, and he continued to hold office until the election results were finalized and the transition of political power took place. Meanwhile, in the face of claims that he had taken on the position of interim prime minister for personal reasons, Allawi was quoted by Allam in the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau as noting of the brief appointment: "It's very tiring, it's very exhausting, it's very demanding, it's very dangerous. I face every day at least two or three attempts to assassinate me. . . . We have to put the country back on its feet. Somebody has to do it. However, I assure you, practically, it's horrible."
Periodicals
Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, December 15, 2004; December 16, 2004.
Knight Ridder Washington Bureau, December 15, 2004; December 20, 2004.
New York Times, November 26, 2004; December 2, 2004; December 4, 2004; December 9, 2004; December 16, 2004; December 18, 2004; December 21, 2004; January 21, 2005.
Time, July 5, 2004.
Online
"British-Educated Surgeon Is New Iraqi Prime Minister," Guardian Unlimited,http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1227372,00.html (May 29, 2004).
"Iraq PM: U.S. Departure Would Be Disaster," Newsday.com,http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/sns/ap/iraq/politics,0,4568546.story?coll=ny/worldnews/headlines (June 4, 2004).
"New Iraqi PM Works on Govt. Team," ABC News Online,http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1118922.htm (May 29, 2004).
