News Intelligence Analysis
Chalabi--is
alive and well and entrenched in interim government
by Marcia MacMullan
June 24, 2004
Jane Mayer's prescient article, "The Manipulator" in the New Yorker was published shortly before Ayad Allawi was appointed, on U.S. orders, as the interim Prime Minister of Iraq. (The appointment was made notwithstanding the fact that the UN’s envoy Lakhdar Brahmini was given the responsibility to make the choice.) Mayer's extensive list of Chalabi's stooges in the interim government and its military/industrial complex therefore did not include the fact that Ayad Allawi is related to Ahmad Chalabi by marriage and Chalabi's nephew, Ali Allawi, the Iraqi Defense Minister, is Chalabi's sister's son. Ayad and Ali Allawi are cousins. Nepotism rules.
I learned this tonight at a women-only meeting convened specifically to give S**, an Iraqi born woman, an opportunity to describe conditions in her former home in Baghdad, and her views generally. (Well educated herself, S** is married to a scientist; they came to the US five years ago and have just become US citizens.)
Iraqis think the "transition" on June 30 "is nothing."
"They know that behind every Iraqi is a US official telling him what to do..."
Some other highlights of the meeting:
S** thinks Iraq will be broken up into separate Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish states within two years or less.
Reconstruction---where is it? "There is no electricity or water, the US keeps claiming they are rebuilding Iraq ... but my brother, who usually is so mild, says he can't stand it anymore. He has young teenage boys, he has to keep them indoors. Schools are open only sometimes--every time his children go to school he prays they return alive... The electricity--the reconstruction, that is going to the Green Zone....
One of the women appointed to the interim government left Iraq several years ago and disavowed her nationality. "She knows nothing about Iraq--and now she is a appointed to run the country..."
Israel and the Kurds: "Iraqis know that Israel and the Kurds are very close, have been for several years. The Kurds are well organized. They are very fierce fighters."
"Iraq was a secular state... It has become a Muslim state."
The health of the Iraqi people is very bad, signs of uranium contamination are everywhere. "Many children have some defects, their hearts, or some deformity. My sister who is five years younger can barely walk--she used to be strong. Her bones, something is wrong with her bones..."
The Iraqi people know that it is "the American government, not the American people, who are bad."
S** and her family regularly watch the news in Arabic as well as in English. She laughed at the total contrast, "the Arabic news from Iraq, all very bad, showing terrible things...in the US news everything is nice, just fine."
Editor's Note: This article was changed several hours following its publication on the Yurica Report.
Marcia MacMullan retired from a position as casework director of a juvenile court in Ann Arbor Michigan. She holds a Master's degree in Social Work.
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