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Today's
Stories
July
16, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up
July
15, 2004
Heather
Williams
McMissing
the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message
Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money
Tom
Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo
Brian
Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?
Bill
Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course,
But...
July
14, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold:
the Green Deceivers
Neve
Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall
Diane
Christian
The Priesthood of Death
Stefan
Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?
Josh
Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate
Conn
Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War
and Education
Website
of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire
July
13, 2004
Ray
McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence
Debacle...and Worse
Mark
Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney
Ben
Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like
These, Who Needs Electorates?
Mark
Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel
in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!
Chris
White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine
Indoctrination
July
10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
July
9, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger
Stands Up Against War
Justin
Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About
Latin America
Robert
Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral
William
S. Lind
The October Surprises
Sibel
Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future
Gary
Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and
the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
July
8, 2004
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain
Toufic
Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall:
a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent
Dave
Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law
Joshua
Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard
Dean
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card
James
Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter
July
7, 2004
John
Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence
of Meaning
Virginia
Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's
Hunger Strike
Susan
Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby
Mickey
Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade
Michael
Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire
Sean
Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
June
29, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
The Cloak-and-Dagger Handover
Robert
Fisk
Alice in an Iraqi Wonderland
Troy
Selvaratnam
New York Times Boosts Pet Developer
Harry
Browne
Bush in Ireland
Ray
McGovern
The CIA According to Anonymous
Elaine
Cassel
Hamdi, Padilla & Rasul: Who Really
Won?
June
28, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn / Leyla Linton
Grisly Rituals in Iraq
Amira
Hass
Confronting Myths and Deadly Power
June
26 / 27, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang's All Here
Patrick
Cockburn
Iyad Allawi, the CIA's New Stooge
in Iraq
Dennis
Hans
Once They Were Sweethearts: Cheney,
the NYTs and the Myth of an Iraq Link to 9/11
Ben
Tripp
Adventures in Fuel Efficiency
Dave
Lindorff
That State Department Terrorism
Report: What They Knew, But Didn't Tell You
Chris
Floyd
Cold Irons Bound: the Russian Gambit
Ali
Tonak
Contamination at Berkeley: Profit Motives,
Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela
Keith
Rosenthal
The Withering of the Anti-War Movement
Bryan
Sacks
The Failure of the 9/11 Commission
Wayne
Madsen
Another Case of Blowback
Thomas
St. John
L. Frank Baum, Racist: Indian-Hating
in the Wizard of Oz
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
American Swadeshi
June
25, 2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul
Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege:
Bush Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
Jack
McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal?
Did Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg
Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diana Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June
19 / 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation
on Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother
Nature
Col.
Dan Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis
in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a
Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June
18, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave
Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player
& Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American
Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
18, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
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Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
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Impeach
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Click
Here for More Stories.
|
July
16, 2004
Our
New Saddam
Did
Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?
By
PAUL McGEOUGH
Sydney
Morning Herald
Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister
of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected
insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington
handed control of the country to his interim government, according
to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.
They say the prisoners--handcuffed
and blindfolded--were lined up against a wall in a courtyard
adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were
held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western
suburbs.
They say Dr Allawi told onlookers
the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they "deserved
worse than death".
The Prime Minister's office
has denied the entirety of the witness accounts in a written
statement to the Herald, saying Dr Allawi had never visited the
centre and he did not carry a gun.
But the informants told the
Herald that Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about
a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister's
personal security team watched in stunned silence.
Iraq's Interior Minister, Falah
al-Naqib, is said to have looked on and congratulated him when
the job was done. Mr al-Naqib's office has issued a verbal denial.
The names of three of the alleged
victims have been obtained by the Herald.
One of the witnesses claimed
that before killing the prisoners Dr Allawi had told those around
him that he wanted to send a clear message to the police on how
to deal with insurgents.
"The prisoners were against
the wall and we were standing in the courtyard when the Interior
Minister said that he would like to kill them all on the spot.
Allawi said that they deserved worse than death--but then he
pulled the pistol from his belt and started shooting them."
Re-enacting the killings, one
witness stood three to four metres in front of a wall and swung
his outstretched arm in an even arc, left to right, jerking his
wrist to mimic the recoil as each bullet was fired. Then he raised
a hand to his brow, saying: "He was very close. Each was
shot in the head."
The witnesses said seven prisoners
had been brought out to the courtyard, but the last man in the
line was only wounded--in the neck, said one witness; in the
chest, said the other.
Given Dr Allawi's role as the
leader of the US experiment in planting a model democracy in
the Middle East, allegations of a return to the cold-blooded
tactics of his predecessor are likely to stir a simmering debate
on how well Washington knows its man in Baghdad, and precisely
what he envisages for the new Iraq.
There is much debate and rumour
in Baghdad about the Prime Minister's capacity for brutality,
but this is the first time eyewitness accounts have been obtained.
A former CIA officer, Vincent
Cannisatraro, recently told The New Yorker: "If you're asking
me if Allawi has blood on his hands from his days in London,
the answer is yes, he does. He was a paid Mukhabarat [intelligence]
agent for the Iraqis, and he was involved in dirty stuff."
In Baghdad, varying accounts
of the shootings are interpreted by observers as useful to a
little-known politician who, after 33 years in exile, needs to
prove his leadership credentials as a "strongman" in
a war-ravaged country that has no experience of democracy.
Dr Allawi's statement dismissed
the allegations as rumours instigated by enemies of his interim
government.
But in a sharp reminder of
the Iraqi hunger for security above all else, the witnesses did
not perceive themselves as whistle-blowers. In interviews with
the Herald they were enthusiastic about such killings, with one
of them arguing: "These criminals were terrorists. They
are the ones who plant the bombs."
Before the shootings, the 58-year-old
Prime Minister is said to have told the policemen they must have
courage in their work and that he would shield them from any
repercussions if they killed insurgents in the course of their
duty.
The witnesses said the Iraqi
police observers were "shocked and surprised". But
asked what message they might take from such an act, one said:
"Any terrorists in Iraq should have the same destiny. This
is the new Iraq.
"Allawi wanted to send
a message to his policemen and soldiers not to be scared if they
kill anyone--especially, they are not to worry about tribal revenge.
He said there would be an order from him and the Interior Ministry
that all would be fully protected.
"He told them: 'We must
destroy anyone who wants to destroy Iraq and kill our people.'
"At first they were surprised.
I was scared--but now the police seem to be very happy about
this. There was no anger at all, because so many policemen have
been killed by these criminals."
Dr Allawi had made a surprise
visit to the complex, they said.
Neither witness could give
a specific date for the killings. But their accounts narrowed
the time frame to on or around the third weekend in June--about
a week before the rushed handover of power in Iraq and more than
three weeks after Dr Allawi was named as the interim Prime Minister.
They said that as many as five
of the dead prisoners were Iraqis, two of whom came from Samarra,
a volatile town to the north of the capital, where an attack
by insurgents on the home of Mr Al-Naqib killed four of the Interior
Minister's bodyguards on June 19.
The Herald has established
the names of three of the prisoners alleged to have been killed.
Two names connote ties to Syrian-based Arab tribes, suggesting
they were foreign fighters: Ahmed Abdulah Ahsamey and Amer Lutfi
Mohammed Ahmed al-Kutsia.
The third was Walid Mehdi Ahmed
al-Samarrai. The last word of his name indicates that he was
one of the two said to come from Samarra, which is in the Sunni
Triangle.
The three names were provided
to the Interior Ministry, where senior adviser Sabah Khadum undertook
to provide a status report on each. He was asked if they were
prisoners, were they alive or had they died in custody.
But the next day he cut short
an interview by hanging up the phone, saying only: "I have
no information--I don't want to comment on that specific matter."
All seven were described as
young men. One of the witnesses spoke of the distinctive appearance
of four as "Wahabbi", the colloquial Iraqi term for
the foreign fundamentalist insurgency fighters and their Iraqi
followers.
He said: "The Wahabbis
had long beards, very short hair and they were wearing dishdashas
[the caftan-like garment worn by Iraqi men]."
Raising the hem of his own
dishdasha to reveal the cotton pantaloons usually worn beneath,
he said: "The other three were just wearing these--they
looked normal."
One witness justified the shootings
as an unintended act of mercy: "They were happy to die because
they had already been beaten by the police for two to eight hours
a day to make them talk."
After the removal of the bodies,
the officer in charge of the complex, General Raad Abdullah,
is said to have called a meeting of the policemen and told them
not to talk outside the station about what had happened. "He
said it was a security issue," a witness said.
One of the Al-Amariyah witnesses
said he watched as Iraqis among the Prime Minister's bodyguards
piled the prisoners' bodies into the back of a Nissan utility
and drove off. He did not know what became of them. But the other
witness said the bodies were buried west of Baghdad, in open
desert country near Abu Ghraib.
That would place their burial
near the notorious prison, which was used by Saddam Hussein's
security forces to torture and kill thousands of Iraqis. Subsequently
it was revealed as the setting for the still-unfolding prisoner
abuse scandal involving US troops in the aftermath of the fall
of Baghdad.
The Herald has established
that as many as 30 people, including the victims, may have been
in the courtyard. One of the witnesses said there were five or
six civilian-clad American security men in a convoy of five or
six late model four-wheel-drive vehicles that was shepherding
Dr Allawi's entourage on the day. The US military and Dr Allawi's
office refused to respond to questions about the composition
of his security team. It is understood that the core of his protection
unit is drawn from the US Special Forces units.
The security establishment
where the killings are said to have happened is on open ground
on the border of the Al-Amariyah and Al-Kudra neighbourhoods
in Baghdad.
About 90 policemen are stationed
at the complex, which processes insurgents and more hardened
offenders among those captured in the struggle against a wave
of murder, robbery and kidnapping in post-invasion Iraq.
The Interior Ministry denied
permission for the Herald to enter the heavily fortified police
complex.
The two witnesses were independently
and separately found by the Herald. Neither approached the newspaper.
They were interviewed on different days in a private home in
Baghdad, without being told the other had spoken. A condition
of the co-operation of each man was that no personal information
would be published.
Both interviews lasted more
than 90 minutes and were conducted through an interpreter, with
another journalist present for one of the meetings. The witnesses
were not paid for the interviews.
Dr Allawi's office has dismissed
the allegations as rumours instigated by enemies of his interim
government.
A statement in the name of
spokesman Taha Hussein read: "We face these sorts of allegations
on a regular basis. Numerous groups are attempting to hinder
what the interim Iraqi government is on the verge of achieving,
and occasionally they spread outrageous accusations hoping they
will be believed and thus harm the honourable reputation of those
who sacrifice so much to protect this glorious country and its
now free and respectable people.
"Dr Allawi is turning
this country into a free and democratic nation run by the rule
of law; so if your sources are as credible as they say they are,
then they are more than welcome to file a complaint in a court
of law against the Prime Minister."
In response to a question asking
if Dr Allawi carried a gun, the statement said: "[He] does
not carry a pistol. He is the Prime Minister of Iraq, not a combatant
in need of any weaponry."
Sabah Khadum, a senior adviser
to Interior Minister Mr Naqib, whose portfolio covers police
matters, also dismissed the accounts. Rejecting them as "ludicrous",
Mr Khadum said of Dr Allawi: "He is a doctor and I know
him. He was my neighbour in London. He just doesn't have it in
him. Baghdad is a city of rumours. This is not worth discussing."
Mr Khadum added: "Do you
think a man who is Prime Minister is going to disqualify himself
for life like this? This is not a government of gangsters."
Asked if Dr Allawi had visited
the Al-Amariyah complex--one of the most important counter-insurgency
centres in Baghdad--Mr Khadum said he could not reveal the Prime
Minister's movements. But he added: "Dr Allawi has made
many visits to police stations ... he is heading the offensive."
US officials in Iraq have not
made an outright denial of the allegations. An emailed response
to questions from the Herald to the US ambassador, John Negroponte,
said: "If we attempted to refute each [rumour], we would
have no time for other business. As far as this embassy's press
office is concerned, this case is closed."
Weekend
Edition Features for July 10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
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