In case there was any doubt, there’s a startling difference between Ayad Allawi’s rhetoric when Bush officials are writing his remarks and when he’s speaking on his own. One is dishonest, the other true. One is embarrassingly wrong, the other sobering but accurate.
At the White House for a campaign stop, I mean, diplomatic event two weeks ago, Allawi dismissed rampant violence in Iraq, blaming the media and a few “pockets of terrorists” for the troubles. That, of course, was when officials from the White House and the Bush campaign were carefully crafting his message for public consumption.
Yesterday, however, as my friend H.M. noted, Allawi sang a far different tune.
In his first speech before the interim National Assembly here, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi gave a sobering account on Tuesday of the threat posed by the insurgency, saying that the country’s instability is a “source of worry for many people” and that the guerrillas represent “a challenge to our will.”
[…]
In his speech, Dr. Allawi, who has cast himself as a tough leader since taking office in late June, insisted that elections would go ahead in January as planned, but he acknowledged that there were significant obstacles standing in the way of full security and reconstruction. The nascent police force is underequipped and lacks the respect needed from the public to quell the insurgency, he said, and American business executives have told him that they fear investing in Iraq because of the rampant violence here.
[…]
“It’s clear that since the handover, the capabilities are not complete and that the situation is very difficult now in respect to creating the forces and getting them ready to face the challenges,” he said.
He added that “the police force is not well equipped and is not respected enough to lay down its authority” without backing from a strong army.
Funny, he didn’t mention any of this in the Rose Garden. Do you suppose Bush will dismiss Allawi’s new concerns by labeling him a “flip-flopper”?