{"id":2143,"date":"2004-07-16T12:26:06","date_gmt":"2004-07-16T17:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2143.html"},"modified":"2004-07-16T12:26:06","modified_gmt":"2004-07-16T17:26:06","slug":"meet-the-new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/meet-the-new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the new boss; same as the old boss?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My friend Poppy alerted<\/a> me to a story<\/a> you may be hearing a bit about over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.<\/p>\n

They say the prisoners – handcuffed and blindfolded – were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city’s south-western suburbs.<\/p>\n

They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they “deserved worse than death”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Allawi has denied the witness’ accounts and insisted he’s never even been to the police station in question.<\/p>\n

So far, only the<\/a> Australian<\/a> press<\/a> has jumped on this story, and at this point, none of the major U.S. outlets have noted it. But, if the charges have merit, this could be a pretty big story very soon.
\n
\nOne interesting angle is how the Austrailian reporter who broke this story, Paul McGeough, came to learn of the charges and what the witnesses think of Allawi.<\/p>\n

The witnesses did not perceive themselves as whistle-blowers. In interviews with The Age they enthusiastically supported Dr Allawi for the killings. One justified the alleged killings and said: “These criminals were terrorists. They are the ones who plant the bombs. Allawi said they deserved worse than death; that they didn’t need to be sent to court.”<\/p>\n

The two witnesses were independently and separately found by The Age; neither approached the newspaper. Nor were they put forward by, or through, others. They were interviewed on different days in a private home in Baghdad, without being told that the other had spoken.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, these charges have not been substantiated, but if true, probably undermine Bush’s description<\/a> of the new prime minister.<\/p>\n

“Dr. Allawi is a strong leader. He endured exile for decades and survived assassination attempts by Saddam’s regime. He was trained as a physician, has worked as a businessman and has always been an Iraqi patriot.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friend Poppy alerted me to a story you may be hearing a bit about over the weekend. Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}