Mentioned By Whom

David Ignatius displays his mastery of deliberate obtuseness in The Washington Post:

In "back to the future" mode, the name being mentioned these days is Ayad Allawi, a former Baathist who was interim prime minister and has strong support among Sunnis, even though he's a secular Shiite. Allawi has bundles of money to help buy political support, but it comes from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, rather than the United States.

Being mentioned by whom? And why? Might Allawi have published any op-eds in prominent newspapers that Ignatius works for? Mightn't there have been some reporting recently on this "money to help buy political support" going to a powerful Republican lobbyist and communications operation here in DC? Meanwhile, this description of where the money comes from seems pretty misleading. A good friend of his runs a CIA-funded "Iraqi" intelligence service that doesn't report to Iraq's government. Another friend stole a billion dollars (much of it presumably from the US Treasury originally) from the Iraqi government.

Comments

Being mentioned, as William Safire would say, by The Great Mentioner.

Posted by Quiddity | August 26, 2007 4:17 PM

Here's an idea: the question of who runs the Iraqi government is a question for the Iraqis, not for us. No doubt we have our preferences, but our preferences don't mean much to the Iraqis and revealing themn would surely be counterproductive.

Posted by CJColucci | August 26, 2007 8:53 PM