ALI ALLAWI INTERVIEW - Wednesday 16th May, 2007
GEORGE NEGUS: In your book you have a retinue of criticisms of
the situation. You talk about the "monumental ignorance" of the
American war planners, the "rank amateurism and swaggering arrogance"
of the occupying authority. It's been described by the 'Times'
newspaper as a text of what not to do in a post-war environment. You've
said US military policy is a 'disaster'. That's very stringent
criticism. Are you laying the blame at the feet of the Americans and
the occupying forces, including our own Australians who are there as
part of the coalition of the willing?
ALI ALLAWI, PRIME MINISTERIAL ADVISOR AND AUTHOR: Well, on the
security
side, the military side there is no doubt you have to blame the
multinational force - the Americans, the British, to a much lesser
extent the Australians - who had troops on the ground because they were
responsible for maintaining security and order and controlling the
territory of the country. The fact of the matter is that four years
later we have not only very serious civil conflicts at all levels of
society in various groups and factions, the country has become much
more sectarianised. It's divided along sectarian ethnic lines and now
it's being divided along provincial and regional lines. If you add all
of that, there's no doubt that a secret policy that ends up with
something like 250,000 people killed, with disintegration of the state
and the inability to organise new armed forces for the Iraqi government
is a very clear signal that the whole post-war policy has failed.
You can't really hide behind your fingers and say that it is due to the
insurgency or is due to this or that. The accumulation of policies,
this whole nexus that was pursued from the day after the war until now
has been really an accumulating set of disasters. And the Iraqi people
are the first to pay for it. We have lost nearly 250,000 people, killed
- at a minimum - as a result of this disaster. We have nearly 2 million
people who are internally displaced, another 2 million people who are
refugees. Now, I don't call that a setback, I call that a disaster.
GEORGE NEGUS: In a few words, it is an unholy mess. I mean,
for those
of us outside, is the major issue insurgents - the sectarian violence -
terrorists or people, Iraqis who would regard themselves as freedom
fighters? It is hard for us as outsiders to even know who is fighting
whom.
ALI ALLAWI: It is like a pyramid of conflicts. At the top you
have the
conflict between the al-Qaeda terrorists and the multinational force
and the Iraqi Government. One notch lower than that you have a conflict
between the insurgents - the so-called non-terrorist wing of the
resistance - and the Americans and essential Iraqi forces. One step
lower than that it is tribal levies that are connected either to the
government or the multinational force involved also in conflict. One
level lower than that you have the militias of the various political
parties trying to exercise their control over territory. Another level
lower than that you have militias fighting with each other in various
provinces.
GEORGE NEGUS: Can I interrupt you there, sir? How do we
unravel that
mess? You talk about a U-turn being needed. Are you saying that
military intervention won't end the bloodshed?
ALI ALLAWI: Yes. Because it has cascaded. It is now no longer
a single
identifiable enemy. It is a series of conflicts each one of which
threatens the government and the state at a different level, at a more
serious level. Obviously at the apex of it is the conflict, the battle
against the al-Qaeda terrorists and the insurgents. This military
conflict by and in of itself is incapable of being resolved by having
150,000 to 200,000 troops on the ground. The Iraqi army by all
reckoning, including that of the multinational force, would not be fit
to fight this kind of war or take over this war for another maybe 18 to
24 months. So you're talking about a conflict that can go on for years
on end given the insufficient level of forces deployed. So if you're
not going to use military solutions, which means you have to basically
flood the country with more troops and weapons, you have to follow a
diplomatic and political resolution and you have to see what are the
consequences, the forces that were unleashed as a result of this
invasion and occupation and how you will try to accommodate and contain
them.
GEORGE NEGUS: I'd like to come back to that in a moment. But
could we
talk about corruption? In your book you talk about $800 million - when
you became defence minister - that had simply disappeared from your
ministry's coffers. It has been described as one of the biggest thefts
in history. Can we interpret that as meaning that the Americans and
even our Australians are helping to prop up what was and probably still
is a corrupt regime in Iraq?
ALI ALLAWI: I mean, I discovered that when I came back into
government
as minister of finance. It was basically the entire procurement budget
of the Ministry of Defence was stolen. I'm not talking about rake-offs
or commissions or padding on contracts and things like that, which are
of course unacceptable but they are still containable. I'm talking
about outright theft of up to $1.7 billion of the procurement budget.
GEORGE NEGUS: By whom, Mr Allawi?
ALI ALLAWI: Well, it was quite clear. There are now warrants
out for
the arrests of the former ministers of defence. There are a number of
senior officials that have been indicted who have now absconded and
left the country. But the whole political structure that was involved
in authorising and allowing these payments to take place was obviously
involved in it, I mean, culpable at least. And these things happened
under the oversight responsibility of the multinational force because
there is no question in my mind that they knew, probably, what was
going on.
GEORGE NEGUS: So they were turning a blind eye to this immense
corruption that you're talking about?
ALI ALLAWI: Yes, I mean, they turned a blind eye because they
probably
said, "Well, this is something internal to the Iraqi government and we
can't really do much about it. And this is their call, their
responsibility," and so on. But once again this is insufficient
explanation for a multinational force that is supposed to have
oversight and direct authority, I might add, over the Iraqi armed
forces. You can't have the entire procurement budget of your Ministry
of Defence disappear and do nothing about it or ignore the
consequences. So for 18 months we really had an army that had no
equipment. So somebody has to pay for that.
GEROGE NEGUS: Could I interrupt you there because we're losing
our
satellite time at the moment? You talked about the need for not further
military intervention but a diplomatic or political solution. Isn't
that wishful thinking?
ALI ALLAWI: I mean, this is the reason why I'm in fact
preferring this
solution, is that if you continue to go along the current trajectory
you are talking about a country that has to face years if not decades
of war and conflict. You have to try to isolate what has happened and
try to tackle it diplomatically. I know it is far more complex and
tangled than it is likely to and it is not likely to be resolved over
the next few weeks or months. But there has to be a serious effort made
to try to corral in the regional powers and try to isolate the various
political consequences of this war and try to recreate a new political
equilibrium. It is not easy but it can be done, and it can be done if
there is willingness on the part of the great powers, especially the
United States, to undertake a commitment to a political and diplomatic
solution rather than the military trajectory that they are following
right now whose end-state is uncertain.
GEORGE NEGUS: But meanwhile of course there is not even a
semblance of
anything vaguely resembling normal life in your country.
ALI ALLAWI: No, there isn't. But I mean, again, you can't
throw the
towel in and say all is lost. We cannot condemn 25 million people to
further violence, bloodshed, death and mayhem. This has been going on
far too long in Iraq. Iraq has been in one form of conflict or another
since 1979. You're talking about a country that has been really its
soul has been torn apart. And we cannot, either as Iraqis or even as
the international community, especially those countries that are
involved inside Iraq right now, walk away from this mess. We may have
to recalibrate our policies but we cannot walk away from it. It is just
too much for the Iraqi people and for the region, frankly, to bear.
GEORGE NEGUS: Mr Allawi, thank you very much for your time. I
hope next
time we speak we're talking about better times for your country. Thank
you again.
ALI ALLAWI: Thank you very much. Thank you.