Intelligence

Iraq premier's MI6 links

Times Online - World

From James Hider in Baghdad

A FORMER Baathist with close ties to MI6 was named yesterday as Prime Minister of Iraq’s caretaker government.

Iyad Allawi, a British educated neurologist and secular Shia who survived an axe attack by one of Saddam Hussein’s henchmen in his Surrey home in 1978, was chosen unanimously by the USappointed governing council.

Dr Allawi’s organisation, the Iraqi National Accord, claimed to have supplied the erroneous information that Saddam had chemical weapons on a 45-minute standby.

The group admitted that the intelligence was based on a single source but said that it had been passed on in good faith.

Aides to Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN special envoy to Iraq, said he was ready to work with Dr Allawi in choosing the new government, to be announced early next week.

Sources said that Mr Brahimi had hoped to announce the appointment next week, and that the Iraqi Governing Council had jumped the gun.

The White House welcomed the choice, saying that Dr Allawi would make an excellent prime minister. “I think that this is going to work,” an official said.

Dr Allawi, 58, fled into exile after denouncing Saddam for hijacking the Baath party. After the axe attack he started to rally dissenters and his contacts with the military won him the respect of intelligence agencies.

May 29, 2004 at 12:16 AM in MI6 | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home