Friday, 18 February 2005ORLY HALPERN
Ahmed Chalabi is likely to emerge as Iraq's leader, as originally envisioned by the US, Dan Senor, the former spokesman for the US occupation government in Iraq, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
"He has a good chance of getting the job," said Senor.
The Iraqi premiership race is now between two seasoned 58-year-old Shi'ite politicians from within the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), a Shi'ite list that won the most votes in the elections.
One is Chalabi, the secular leader of the Iraqi National Congress. The other is Ibrahim Jaafari, the religious leader of the Dawa Party.
According to Senor, Jaafari would probably have been assured of the post if Chalabi had not pushed ÔÇô and succeeded ÔÇô to get an internal vote of all the list members. Originally, the top leaders of the parties within the list were going to decide between themselves.
"Chalabi believes that if there's an up or down vote of the 141 members he has a better chance of winning," said Senor.
Chalabi is the former US darling who arrived in Iraq with the allied forces and the hope he would take Saddam Hussein's place. He left Iraq as a teenager and later created an opposition party called the Iraqi National Congress, which was on the CIA payroll.
Chalabi has very close contacts in Israel and with leaders of the Jewish community in the US. His party once called for the normalization of ties with Israel, where he has visited a number of times.
He fell out of favor with the US when he was thought to have been spying for Iran. His party was also accused of misleading the US by supplying it with false information about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Recently, the US announced there were no WMDs there and the search was called off.
But in a remarkable turnaround, Chalabi allied himself with the religious Shi'ites and became part of that list.
Now he hopes to get the premiership. "He said he has a plan, he's ready for the vote," said Senor.
The final results of the Iraqi elections gave the UIA a slight majority, the Iraqi Election Commission announced Thursday. After the smaller lists, which did not get the minimum number of required votes, were removed from the results, the UIA had 140 of the 175 votes. This means that almost every list member will get a seat in the National Assembly.
Within the next few days, the members of the UIA list must decide who they want to be the next prime minister. The two religious parties on the list, the Supreme Council of the Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa party members, will probably all vote for Jaafari, a religious politician.
But Chalabi, said Senor, is confident.
"There are a lot of independents on the list and Chalabi believes he can win them ÔÇô and he will try to win them over," said Senor.
Still, Adnan Ali, Jaafari's senior adviser, told the Post he's confident Jaafari will get the job. "There's no doubt about it." |
Friday, 18 February 2005
Jerusalem Post
|
|
