The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #73670   Message #1292603
Posted By: Nerd
08-Oct-04 - 04:51 PM
Thread Name: BS: Kerry is an arrogant asshole
Subject: RE: BS: Kerry is an arrogant asshole
Just to point out, Old Guy, you are distorting yet again. You use the following quote:

"Iraqi secret police were sent to assassinate Allawi in London in 1978, bursting into his bedroom and hacking him with an ax. He suffered serious injuries and spent nearly a year in a hospital. He continues to walk with a limp because of injuries to his leg suffered in the attack."

to suggest that Allawi did not work for Saddam. In fact, by many accounts he was "hit" because he was a wayward agent of Saddam's secret police.

Here's a more complete quote:

Allawi was an active supporter of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party in its early days when it was still banned. In 1971, he moved to London in order to continue his medical education. Some have reported this as an exile, but some of Allawi's old counterparts have claimed that he continued to serve the Baath Party, and the Iraqi secret police, searching out enemies of the regime. During this time he was president of the Iraqi Student Union in Europe. Seymour Hersh quotes former CIA officer Vincent Cannistraro: "[...] Allawi has blood on his hands from his days in London [...] he was a paid Mukhabarat agent for the Iraqis, and he was involved in dirty stuff." A Middle Eastern diplomat confirmed that Allawi was involved with a Mukhabarat "hit team" that killed Baath Party dissenters in Europe. However, he resigned from the Baath party for undisclosed reasons in 1975. [1] (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040628fa_fact)

At first Saddam, then Iraq's deputy president, pressured Allawi, who was in contact with senior military and party officers that were increasingly critical of Saddam, to rejoin Ba'ath. In 1978, friends told Allawi that his name was on a liquidation list. In February 1978 Allawi was awoken in bed one night by an intruder in his Surrey home, who proceeded to attack him with an axe. The intruder left, convinced that Allawi was dead. He survived the attempted murder, and spent the next year in hospital recovering from his injuries. It
is presumed that the attack was an assassination attempt ordered by Saddam Hussein. [2]


So we should be happy that he is president because he, like so many other brutal agents of the Ba'ath secret police, were targeted by Saddam? I don't think so.