Doctor, Defector, Patriot, Spy

Above all, Allawi has devoted decades of his life trying to win friends and influence people. When Saddam was in power, he and his INA cohorts specialized in enticing armed forces and intelligence personnel to defect. One Jordanian source with detailed knowledge of the INA's covert wars credited Allawi "with some serious intelligence work." He said Allawi personally journeyed into Iraq before the U.S.-led Iraq war and held "covert meetings with Iraqi military commanders to tell them 'Saddam is finished, so just stay home when the fighting begins.' Many did."

After liberation, Allawi also resorted to more conventional, Western-friendly methods to get his message across. Last year, his supporters dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars on lobbying efforts where they count most: in the United States. Among the hired guns were the firm Preston Gates, which opened doors on the Hill; a former U.S. ambassador to Qatar, who did public relations work, and even a New York advertising firm which once worked on behalf of the Beatles.

In recent months Allawi and his aides have been in political mode, schmoozing important constituencies. They've made quiet but methodical trips to the hinterland, lobbying labor unions and religious groups of all stripes. "Allawi has been out politicking," said a senior Bush administration official in Iraq, "I'm not in charge of his scheduling but he's been politicking with Sunni tribes and in Najaf," the holy city where most of the country's top Shiite clerics are based. One of his former INA colleagues, Gen. Abdullah Mohammad al-Shehwani, recently spent time in Najaf and Karbala on the margins of mediation efforts between Shiite luminaries and renegade cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

These low-key but persistent efforts are one reason Allawi won the IGC's unanimous backing with what seemed to be remarkable ease. (Even a representative of Ahmed Chalabi, Allawi's longtime rival, endorsed him.) Now he must try to convince the rest of the Iraqi population--including armed anti-U.S. Shiite militias in the south and combat-hardened insurgents in the violent Sunni triangle--that he's an Iraqi patriot and not an American puppet. After decades of practicing his powers of persuasion in the shadows, it will be Allawi's toughest test.

© 2004