POWER GRAB SEEN IN ‘ALLAWI COUNCIL’
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/world/Viewdet.asp?ID=7376&cat=aAn agreement by Iraqi leaders to set up a national Security Council reflects efforts to curb the power of Shi’ite Islamists and sidestep deadlock in talks on a unity government, political sources said on Monday. The council is likely to provide a platform for former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular figure popular in Washington, to take a lead in trying to stop Iraq sliding into civil war and may meet before a deal is reached on a national unity cabinet. Indeed the council, whose creation was announced on Sunday, will be a powerful parallel administration, in overall control of security, the economy and all major policy decisions, reducing the influence of Shi’ite Islamists.
“The point of forming the Council was political compromise,” a senior source in the Shi’ite Alliance bloc said. “Some parties want to take decision making out of the hands of the majority.” The Alliance’s strength in parliament gives it a lock on the premiership. It is resisting pressure to drop Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and also rejects Sunni, Kurdish and US complaints about its controversial interior minister. Several sources said that Allawi, who was premier in 2004 under US control, is a prime candidate to lead the Council. “The job was created for him,” a senior political source said. “We have been discussing it for at least two months.”
President Jalal Talabani gave no details of the Council when he announced the general accord on its creation on Sunday. But sources in various parties agreed on its overall design. Allawi, a secular Shi’ite who plotted with US intelligence against Saddam Hussein during his exile in London, ordered US military assaults on both Sunni and Shi’ite rebels in 2004. Alliance leaders countered his well-funded and high-profile campaign for December’s election by accusing Allawi of trying to establish himself as a strongman in the mould of Saddam. His Iraqi List bloc has 25 of parliament’s 275 seats.
Allawi said on Sunday that the number of Iraqis killed each day showed the country was already embroiled in a civil war. Another senior source said the head of the Council would be elected at the first meeting and chosen from its 19 members, who will include the president, prime minister and parliamentary speaker, all their deputies, and various party leaders. Powerful regional leaders like the president of autonomous Kurdistan would also have a seat, the sources said. It was not clear when the Council would first meet. When it does, it will also define its own rules of operation.
full report:
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/world/Viewdet.asp?ID=7376&cat=a