The complexity of handing over power to a sovereign Iraqi government after June 30 was manifest in the guarded reactions that the selection of Dr Allawi as the new prime minister drew from the UN and the US ... According to observers, as a candidate for the prime ministership, he has the advantage of being equally mistrusted by everyone. Religious leaders think he is too secular, the US-led coalition now sees him as a critic, for the anti-Saddam opposition he is an ex-Ba'athist, while ordinary Iraqis say he is a CIA man ... Maybe Dr Allawi is not the ideal candidate to run the interim government, but he would be certainly better than Paul Bremer, the current US administrator of Iraq."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1228298,00.html

Independent on Sunday Editorial, May 30


"Two facts stand out. One is that Dr Allawi used to work for the CIA; the other is that he was not chosen by ... Mr Brahimi. Mr Brahimi was the guarantor that the interim government of Iraq would be independent of the US ... The idea that the Iraqi people will rally behind Dr Allawi and accept him as an honest broker charged with overseeing national elections by the end of January 2005 must now be added to the long list of Bush-Rumsfeld delusions. It is difficult to foresee anything other than more bloodshed ...

"What is extraordinary is that the Bush administration, having made so many mistakes in Iraq _ makes yet more. Iraqi elections were postponed until after the US ones because the Americans feared that they would be won by supporters of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Shia leader. That has only incited the nationalist insurgency and strengthened the hand of more extreme Shia leaders. The nominations of Dr Allawi will reinforce that."