Commenting on the handling of terrorist suspects, the Prime Minister said in the House of Commons on Wednesday 2 February, “the one thing I will not do as Prime Minister is engage in anything that I think puts the security of our country at risk. That is paramount for me.”
(Hansard,)

Why, then, did he ignore the advice of British intelligence, which warned him in February 2003 that the invasion of Iraq would “heighten” not lessen the risk of terrorism against Britain?

The Intelligence and Security Committee report into Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, published in September 2003, found that the Joint Intelligence Committee gave this warning to Tony Blair on 10 February 2003:

“The JIC assessed that al-Qaida and associated groups continued to represent
by far the greatest threat to Western interests and that threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq.” (emphasis added)

Tony Blair invaded Iraq knowing that his action would put the security of this country at risk. The truth is that, as with previous prime ministers, there were other factors that were “paramount”. The security of the British people was not, and is not, a crucial issue.

What about the security of the Iraqi people? Mr Blair claims to have the interests of the Iraqi people at heart. He likes to frame the current conflict as one between “democracy” and “the terrorists”.

He likes to place himself on the side of “democracy” against “the
terrorists”. Why then did he enthusiastically support the US in imposing on Iraq as interim Prime Minister a known former terrorist, Iyad Allawi?

(There are those who still deny that Allawi was imposed by the US. When we go back to his elevation, we find that the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council put forward three names for the top job (and derailing the UN process for selecting the prime minister in the process). According to The Times, the US
vetoed two of the candidates as “too Islamist”, leaving Allawi to take the job. (31 May 2004, p. 27) So George Bush is not lying when he says he did not select Allawi. He just vetoed every other possible candidate.)

Let us run briefly through Allawi“s terrorist background.

The last time car bombs went off in Baghdad (before the US/UK invasion) was in 1994-95. These bombings, which, if they were carried out today, would be denounced by Allawi as vile terrorism, were carried out by the Iraqi exile opposition group known as the Iraqi National Accord (INA), headed then (as now)
by… Iyad Allawi.

Backed by the CIA and preparing for a 1996 coup attempt, the INA bombed a cinema, a mosque, and the street outside an official newspaper, killing a total of perhaps 100 civilians. The CIA role in these bombings was confirmed in the New York Times by ‘former intelligence officials’ who ‘while confirming C.I.A.
involvement in the bombing campaign, would not say how, exactly, the agency had supported it.’ ‘The bombing and sabotage campaign,the former senior intelligence official said, “was a test more than anything else, to demonstrate
capability.” (NYT, 9 June 2004, p. A1 )

100 Iraqi civilians were blown up to demonstrate Iyad Allawi“s terrorist capabilities.

In October 1995, Allawi followed this up by ordering the bombing of the headquarters of the Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella group for Iraqi oppositionists-in-exile which his INA party technically belonged to. 28 anti-Saddam activists were blown up. Three men were arrested and, under interrogation by Kurdish police, confessed that they planted the bombs on the
orders of the INA. The CIA carried out its own investigation, taking away fragments from the scene: the results were never released. (Andrew and Patrick Cockburn, Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession/Out of The Ashes)

Allawi was never punished for these activities by the US, for the simple reason that he and his INA party was at the centre of US policy towards Iraq for over a decade. And the reason Allawi and the INA has been at the centre of US policy towards Iraq for over a decade is that Allawi is a former Baathist, and his
party is a party of former Baathists.

Since 1991, the US has been pursuing a policy in Iraq not of “regime change”, but of “regime stabilization, leadership change”. That’s why in March 1991 Richard Haass, a Middle East staffer on the US National Security Council told a fellow Bush administration official, “You don’t understand. Our policy is to get rid of Saddam, not his regime.” (Saddam Hussein: An
American Obsession/Out of The Ashes)

That’s why in October 2002, the White House spokesperson, Ari Fleischer, when asked about the multi-billion-dollar cost of invading Iraq, replied that the cost of the invasion could be saved for the “cost of one bullet.” Pressed
on whether he was advocating the assassination of Saddam Hussein, Fleischer replied, “Regime change is welcome in whatever form it takes.”

One-bullet, one-man regime change. Leaving the Baathist military,
intelligence services, judiciary, police, and civil service intact would have amounted to “regime change”, if only the supreme leader had been despatched. It’s as if we had had the Nazi state without Hitler. I’ve written more about this in ‘Regime Unchanged’.

Allawi was at the heart of US policy towards Iraq because Allawi represented the best chance of organising a coup within Iraq, and leaving the Baathist system in place.

Allawi joined the Baath Party early, and was an enthusiast. Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA case officer who served in the Middle East, told the New Yorker, “Allawi helped Saddam get to power. He was a very effective operator and a true believer.” For Gerecht, “Two facts stand out about Allawi. One, he likes to think of himself as a man of ideas; and, two, his strongest virtue
is that he’s a thug.”

Allawi moved to London in 1971, to run the European operations of the Baath Party organization. He commanded the local activities of the party“s intelligence arm, the Mukhabarat, until 1975, according to US intelligence officials. “If you’re asking me if Allawi has blood on his hands from his days in London, the answer is yes, he does,” says Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA officer. A “cabinet-level Middle East diplomat” told Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker that Allawi was involved with a Mukhabarat “hit
team” that sought out and killed Ba’ath Party dissenters throughout Europe. (New Yorker, )

Allawi’s involvement in terrorism did not start in 1994, then.

For years, the US tried and failed to organise a coup via Allawi and his INA. When the invasion finally took place, Saddam’s regime collapsed, much to the dismay of Washington. Allawi was brought in to provide what the Foreign Office used to call “an Arab facade” for the occupation, and to aid the US
programme of recruiting and restoring Baathists to power.

At first, the Shia mobilization forced the US to declare a
“de-Baathification” process while quietly re-hiring Saddam’s
spies. In the same month that US governor Paul Bremer announced
“de-Baathification”, the US occupation forces re-hired former intelligence worker Mohammed Abdullah, a colonel with ten years in the Mukhabarat and eight in military intelligence. The colonel told the Sunday Times in September 2003, “We are under strict instructions not to publicise our work with the Americans, but dozens of former Mukhabarat officers have already been
recruited.” (Mark Franchetti, ‘CIA recruits Iraq’s feared secret
police’, Sunday Times, 21 September. 2003, p. 26)

The Sunday Times reported, “US officials claim all recruits from the former Mukhabarat are vetted.” Unfortunately, he notes, vetting is tricky: “The Americans often find themselves forced to rely on Mukhabarat agents already working for them when selecting new recruits.” The Gestapo were vetting the Gestapo.

Once imposed as interim prime minister, Allawi accelerated the process of re-Baathification. He appointed ex-Baathists to key cabinet posts, including Falah al-Naqib, the son of a prominent Baath official who ultimately became Iraq’s ambassador to Sweden, who became minister of the interior. He chose Hazem al-Shaalan, a former Baathist from al-Hillah, as Defence Minister. Brig.
Gen. Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, an old-time Baath officer, was made head of the Iraqi secret police.

According to Dr Juan Cole, an Iraq expert who calls this group “a network of ex-Baathists (or perhaps neo-Baathists)” “Shahwani is alleged to be a long-time CIA asset who is being groomed as a replacement for caretaker Prime Minister Iyad Allawi should the latter be assassinated.”

Allawi even re-hired former Special Forces soldiers from the old regime, to serve in a “police commando” strike force. Maj. Gen Adnon Thabit, who now acts as a Iraqi Police Service adviser for the Ministry of the Interior says, “we have police who have previous experience fighting terrorism and also people who received special training under the former regime – people who used to be in the army.”

U.S. Army Col. James H. Coffman Jr., who works alongside the Major General, says, “They needed a strike force that reported to the Ministry of Interior: So they purposely went out and recruited amongst these former special forces and (former Directorate of General Security [Mukhabarat]) personnel that had a high degree of training existing already: to capitalize
on the previous skill sets that they had.”

Col. Coffman, who has a Special Forces background himself, adds, “This is a very disciplined unit. These are disciplined soldiers who are doing a very good job, and they’re very impressive because of it.” (American Forces Press
Service, 20 October 2004 < http://tinyurl.com/6ss2t>)

The Washington Post observes, “Supporters of Allawi’s actions – including, implicitly and quietly, the United States – believe that the Baathist military and intelligence officers, trained in the ways of control, are Iraq’s best hope of successfully combating the violent insurgency. (3 February 2005,
p. A21 , emphasis added)

Allawi tried to force the doors open wider for the old gang. Last October he tried to abolish the Supreme Commission for De-Baathification, but was found by a court to be acting unlawfully. He wanted to bring in a new rule that any official of any rank could be brought back into government service if they had not actually been found guilty of a crime in a court of law.

This policy is supported by Washington, and they would like the new government to institute something like this. Unfortunately the Shia coalition which has won the most votes in the election is dead against re-Baathification, for obvious reasons.

To make the issue concrete, consider the case of Rasheed Flayeh, appointed last summer by Allawi’s Interior Ministry to the post of director-general of the secret police force. The De- Baathification Commission objected that, as head of security in the southern city of Nasiriya, he had taken part in the brutal
suppression of the 1991 Shia uprising. So what. He was appointed anyway. (New York Times, 13 October 2004 )

Re-Baathification is US policy. It is at the centre of US policy, and has been for over a decade. Re-Baathification cannot truly be reversed until the occupation is reversed. That is the reality of Iraq.

Real security for the Iraqi people means de-Baathification and freedom from occupation. Real security for the people of Britain means ending Tony Blair’s foreign adventures.

Here in Britain, we have a choice. We can be on the side of Rasheed Flayeh, of the men and women with blood on their hands. We can be on the side of Iyad Allawi and his neo-Baathist network, the terrorists and thugs of yesterday and today. We can be on the side of Washington, which promotes the re-nazification of Iraq. We can be on the side of Tony Blair and his democratic
terrorism. Or we can be on the side of all those struggling for real regime change in Iraq, and for an end to the US-UK occupation.