Allawi: The New Iraqi "Democracy" Emerges

(You may click on the title of this blog to see the article which inspired this response.)
 
Breaking news from Truthout.org tells of the brutal murders of six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station just days before Washington handed control of the country to the interim government in Iraq.  This killing was reported by two people who  allegedly witnessed the incident.  The killer: Prime Minister Iyad Allawi himself.  It appears that Iraq has a cowboy, too.
 
The prisoners were handcuffed,  blindfolded, and lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block at the Al-Amariyah security centre in Baghdad.  Then Dr. Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they "deserved worse than death."  With that, Prime Minister Allawi  drew a pistol from his belt and began shooting these young men in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister's personal security team watched in stunned silence.   When the murders had been accomplished, Iraq's Interior Minister, Falah al-Naqib,  also present, is said to have congratulated Allawi on a job well done.  The Iraqi police, though surprised and scared at first, were reportedly very happy about the murders.  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- eight hours a day to make them talk."
 
Although Allawi's office has denied everything and claims he never visited the centre and did not carry a gun, one of the witnesses reported that before the shooting, Allawi told those around him that he wanted to send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents.   He wanted to assure the Iraqi police that they should not be afraid of killing anyone.   These allegations of a return to the cold-blooded tactics of Saddam Hussein raise the obvious concern:  Are the Iraqis any better off now?   Allawi has a bad reputation, according to a former CIA officer, Vincent Cannistraro.   At one time the 58-year-old Prime Minister lived in London where he was a paid Mukhabarat (intelligence) agent for the Iraqis.  Cannisatraro says, "He was involved in dirty stuff."  Some observers in Baghdad say that  this little-known polititian, after 33 years in exile, needs to prove his leadership credentials as a "strongman."  We know how that can be.  Iyad and George should get along fine.
 
When asked about this terrible incident, our new ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, said he had no time to look into the matter and that the case was closed. 
 
So with our own American security personnel on hand and our ambassador looking the other way, and with the intense resentment running rampant among the Iraqi people, much of it against the US,  it is clear there will be no peace in the foreseeable future.  Democracy in Iraq is not going to happen any time soon.