WP: Allawi is "dynamo" with "can-do aura"

[Rose Siding]

Alarmingly, this piece from today's WP is *not* on the op-ed page. This guy is getting Chalabi-quality press!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45678-2004Sep23_2.html

snip>
His eyebrows arc upward. His glasses ride low on his nose. He looks stern and focused and intense, even as he looks charmed and amused, kind of avuncular, like an Iraqi Tony Soprano, but in a fine charcoal gray suit.

None of this is to suggest a thug. That's not quite right. By training, Allawi's a neurologist. But there is the temper to consider, as when he got angry with some aides not too long ago and slammed his hand on a table -- hard -- and broke his right wrist. And there's the unfounded but popular Baghdad street rumor of his recent gunplay against some bad guys. Not to mention his work in the 1990s with the CIA, including a bungled coup plot.

okay, I don't know exactly which parts of that description are supposed to dispel the suggestion of his "thug"-dom. And later...

He is, yes, Bush's man in Baghdad. After all, the United States appointed him to the Iraqi Governing Council, from which he emerged as interim prime minister.

But Allawi also is a man perched at that nexus where agendas converge. He is a man of expedience.

"It's a mutually beneficial relationship," said Judith Kipper. Director of the Middle East Forum at the Council on Foreign Relations, she is an acquaintance of Allawi's.

"If he could ask the Americans to leave altogether he would. But he can't," Kipper said. "He's clearly an Iraqi patriot. That he was associated with the CIA -- that's who was available to help at that time. That's not because he was a puppet of the CIA, but because it was expedient and he needed help in order to do things."

Has anyone ever heard of Judith Kipper? (Or is Ms Miller just having fun with us) So far, she's the difinitive source on the topic of Allawi's puppethood.

[punpirate]

1. What's the surprise?

He's Bush's Thieu. They'll strive to make him seem to the American public something he's not.

BTW, Judith Miller is a NYT columnist, not a WP columnist.

[Rose Siding]

2. right

Judith Miller (NYT) stoodged for Chalabi. Now this woman named Judith (not at the WP, btw) is vouching for Allawi with similar fervor.... Sort of a lame joke on my part.

I didn't mean to imply any surprise. My 'alarm' means worry or concern; a pretty constant state but sometimes more overwhelmingly than at other times.

[leesa]

3. Most terrorists ARE 'can-do', aren't they?

[peekaloo]

4. Was he holding a gun to the author's head?

I heard he has a penchant for that kind of thing.

[librechik]

5. "George W. Bush, a man who knows something about swaggering"

:puke: