Allawi on Alsumaria: I am ready to reconcile with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki

[k98nights]

Allawi on Alsumaria: I am ready to reconcile with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki

Thursday, December 08, 2011 10:34 GMT

Head of Iraqiya List Iyad Allawi announced, on Tuesday, that he is ready to reconcile with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki if he is willing to renounce his opposing stands. This is the perfect time for real reconciliation, Allawi said warning against endless tensions.

“I have no problem in shaking hands with Maliki if he renounces his opposing stands against us and others. I am not embarrassed by any cause that serves Iraqis and the region,” Allawi told Alsumaria TV on Tuesday in a special interview with Jadal Iraqi talk show. “This is the perfect time for a real, honorable, realistic and healthy reconciliation,” he added.

“If Maliki adopts reconciliation and true openness, I would stand as a real supporter, otherwise, Iraq will be facing endless tensions in the future,” Allawi argued urging Al Maliki to seriously resort to true reconciliation.

Relations between former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and current Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki’s coalitions have been witnessing rising tension because of unsettled disagreements over security ministries’ candidates and the formation of the high strategic policy council. Political blocs had agreed in Erbil meeting upon forming the council, however, it has not been ratified till present. Maliki and his bloc members consider the council as unconstitutional and cast doubts on its importance. Maliki even stated that the council has no place in Iraq.

http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News/1-71479-Allawi-on-Alsumaria%3A-I-am-ready-to-reconcile-with-Iraqi-Prime-Minister-Nuri-Al-Maliki.html

[Striker1]

whatever, Allawii sucks, he's a quitter, he through a tantrum and left, can't come back sorry, your loss. HA, HA, Way to be an idiot. It's like watching children fight over toy's. Iraqi politicians are as bad as their American Counterparts. Let's see how much we can take from the people who built us.

[sweet C]

I guess now is not the time to be bickering since this country is about to be on the most powerful upturn in history!!

[usndiver]

whatever, Allawii sucks, he's a quitter, he through a tantrum and left, can't come back sorry, your loss. HA, HA, Way to be an idiot. It's like watching children fight over toy's. Iraqi politicians are as bad as their American Counterparts. Let's see how much we can take from the people who built us.

He's like the cheating spouse that rants and raves,walks out on the family and then a month later comes back with their tail tucked between their legs. It is amazing what power does to people!

[Nani?]

Nooooo allawi seems like he has impeded this process at every turn

[Shick]

WHAT IS IT THAT ALLAWI WANTS MALIKI TO RECONCILE, AND WHAT ROLE DOES HE PLAY IN THE SCHEME OF THINGS?

[Carrello]

Allawi seems to be the buzzing fly in the room. Where is the bug spray?

But speaking of pests, does anyone have any insight as to where or what Ahmed Chalabi is up to. He sits in Parliament currently and I would imagine is waiting for Maliki to be out of the way so he can run, and I would imagine he is pushing the term limits law being pushed. Talk about a snake with two heads. With his history with the CIA, I would think they are watching him closely and Iran is coddling him like a newborn.

[Papster]

Carrello........dont know if you saw this...........GO DINAR

Veteran Foes Ahmad Chalabi, Ayad Allawi Unite Against Iraq's Prime Minister

Dec 6, 2011 4:45 AM EST

For years Iraqi opposition leaders Ahmad Chalabi and Ayad Allawi have been bitter rivals, but now they are joining forces in a bid to rein in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Aram Roston reports exclusively.

Ahmad Chalabi and Ayad Allawi, two rival Iraqi opposition politicians who were instrumental in pushing the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, are setting aside their differences for the time being to try to create a formidable counterforce to Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, according to Iraqi and American officials.

The surprising alliance comes as U.S. forces are finally leaving Iraq, driving in huge convoys across the border to Kuwait. Maliki, who has consolidated his power, is often accused of dictatorial tactics. The State Department reported last year that claims of human-rights abuses in Iraq “continued to be common.” Human Rights Watch said Iraqi officials used torture “routinely,” and the International Committee of the Red Cross was barred from inspecting a jail run by a unit under Maliki’s authority.

Those familiar with the current maneuverings by Chalabi and Allawi say their budding alliance is momentous, especially given the circumstances. “The system has come full circle,” said one former CIA official who knows both Allawi and Chalabi, and who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Historical opposition figures are working together against another tyrannical government in Baghdad. It just drips with irony.”

Chalabi’s American representative, Francis Brooke, downplayed the development in an interview with The Daily Beast, but acknowledged that Chalabi and Allawi are communicating. “They definitely are talking more about politics more,” he said. “I give you that.”

Maliki’s office did not immediately respond to questions, although he has previously disputed allegations that torture took place in Iraqi prisons during his tenure as prime minister. A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad emailed that no one was available to discuss this story.

iraq-bedfellow-roston

Clockwise from left: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Ayad Allawi, Ahmad Chalabi, Getty Images (2); AP Photo

Experienced Iraq hands are well aware that Chalabi and Allawi had been bitter political adversaries for years, even before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when both men were exiles. Chalabi controlled the Iraqi National Congress opposition group, while Allawi headed the similarly named Iraqi National Accord, in a grimly comical competition for American recognition and funds. The two exiled leaders, who are distant cousins, often tried to undercut each other’s efforts.

Chalabi was famously a favorite of the neoconservatives who briefly gained influence in the Bush administration, while at the same time he always kept close ties to Iran’s ayatollahs and that country’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to those who know him. Although he is a former banker with a fraud conviction in Jordan, Chalabi’s group collected tens of millions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers before the war, and spread false stories about Saddam Hussein in an effort to influence American policy, according to a 2006 report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Allawi, a former Baathist who turned against Saddam and fled Iraq in the 1970s, was known to be close to the CIA and to British intelligence, intelligence sources say, although neoconservatives who backed Chalabi disliked him. British newspapers have identified his group, the INA, as the one that passed on the source for the September 2002 claim by then–prime minister Tony Blair that Saddam could launch chemical and biological attacks within 45 minutes. While that’s never officially been confirmed by British intelligence, an official government report in England confirmed that the “45 minute” claim was erroneous, had come from a single source, and should not have been included in Blair’s prewar dossier.

Briefly appointed Iraq’s prime minister in 2004 by the American occupation government, Allawi has continued to be popular in Iraq, especially among Sunnis. In 2010, his political party won more votes than Maliki’s party. But Malaki—ironically, with the help of Chalabi at the time—fended off the results of the election with political maneuvering, and remained in possession of the prime minister’s palace.

An Iraqi who knows both Chalabi and Allawi says the alliance between the two men against Maliki came about earlier this year, when Chalabi suffered a series of setbacks.

First, a Chalabi aide, who ran a committee that banned Baathists from government, was gunned down in Baghdad. The aide’s brother was killed a month later. In the spring there was more writing on the wall for Chalabi, who had retained immense influence in banking in Iraq. His nephew Hussein al-Uzri ran the troubled Trade Bank of Iraq, which had a monopoly on billions in government business. In June, though, al-Uzri was accused of fraud and fled Iraq; he has denied any wrongdoing. Chalabi, the Iraqi source close to him says, “realized his days were numbered.”

Read more:

[Carrello]

Papster, thank you very much. I missed that information. A 60 Minutes producer has a new book on Chalabi:

"Richard Bonin tells the story of Ahmad Chalabi, whose wealthy Shiite family was exiled from Iraq after a revolution that ultimately put Saddam Hussein in power. In Arrows of the Night: Ahmad Chalabi's Long Journey to Triumph in Iraq Bonin traces Chalabi’s efforts to stoke a desire for Iraqi regime change in the United States, and earn support for to installing him as overseer of U.S. interests in the Middle East. The outcome was perhaps the biggest foreign policy disaster in our history."

Bonin said Chalabi is the smartest man he ever met. I am sure some members here can add what they think about any special attention Chalabi might be garnered from the CIA.....

Thanks again.