Mission Overview | Mission Detail | Chronology Satellite Imagery | Forces | Tactical | Weapons Multimedia | News Coverage | Global Headlines| Discuss

Mission 18 - Tactical Considerations
al Qaeda: The Battle for Mosul
Who is Ayad Allawi?

By Robert Baer

(Ed. Note: Robert Baer was an operations officer for the Clandestine Service of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1976 to 1997, specializing in the Mid-East. Though he would not confirm his involvement in any covert action, multiple press reports have stated that the CIA gave Baer the role of coordinating two planned coups in Iraq in the mid-90’s One of them would be led by Ayad Allawi, the current interim Iraqi Prime Minister.)

The essential thing about Allawi is he’s a pragmatist. He has said to us, "Look if you’re going to hold the state of Iraq together, you’ve got to hold the army and the party together. Not because they’re democratic, but because Iraq for the time being has got to be held together by force." We destroyed both of those things last year. Now, we’ve hit the wall of reality. This happens occasionally, especially with these dimwits in Washington. The idea of some kind of democratic republic in Iraq is silly. It was always silly, and always will be, and it didn’t take any knowledge of Iraq to figure that out. If you know anything about Iraqi history, you know it’s not going to work. The chances of a democracy voting in a government we could live with in Iraq were zero. A democracy would elect some Shi’ite Islamic Republic, and it’s going to disrupt governments in the Gulf.

Allawi said you have to have a military coup there. He wanted to get somebody in - some army general - but not himself. The last thing he ever expected was to find himself the leader of the country. It’s accidental, and it’s against his will.

He wasn’t like Chalabi. Chalabi’s vision was, people are going to rise up, destroy the military, destroy the Ba’ath party, and we’ll have democracy. It will spread throughout the Gulf to the Saudis, and even the Palestinians will stop fighting, and live side by side with the settlers because they’ll realize that what they really want is a Gap store. And it’s a beautiful dream. A fantasy.

Allawi never had any illusions about it. And his vision of Iraq was close to mine. He said the only way to hold Iraq together is with a strong Iraqi military. So we’re coming back to his way of thinking. But now there’s no more army, and we destroyed all their tanks. Now, the army is 140,000 US soldiers. Now, if Allawi’s going to become some sort of Saddam Lite, he’s going to get all sorts of shit for it. I think you have to partition the place.

We should have peeled off a general, and said, "Okay, you’re the new Saddam. Here are things you can’t do: You can’t invade Saudi Arabia. You can’t gas people. But otherwise, we’re with you." The other choice was to put a million American soldiers on the ground, on every street corner, make everyone in Iraq learn English, and make it the 51st state.

There weren’t many choices in between.