Word: allawi
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...problems in Iraq mostly the problems of Iraqis. But for U.S. troops in the country and their families back home, the worrying news has hardly skipped a beat. In the 16 days since U.S. administrator J. Paul Bremer handed over the keys to Iraqi interim prime minister Iyad Allawi, some 35 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq. The number of insurgent attacks continue to average close to 40 a day, and the enormity of the security challenge facing the new government is underscored every day - Wednesday's toll included ten killed by a car bomb near the government...
...officials insisted, instead, that it was the necessary starting point to putting Iraq's security in Iraqi hands. But the nascent Iraqi security services are some way off from being in a position to succeed where the U.S. has failed in snuffing out the insurgency. On the one hand Allawi's government has adopted tough new emergency powers that will allow for martial law, curfews and detention of suspects without due process; it has launched security sweeps through some areas - ostensibly directed at "criminals" - that have led to dozens of arrests; and its leaders use language so uncompromising that...
...beating the insurgency is to isolate the hard-liners and foreigners from elements closer to the mainstream of Iraqi society. "We're negotiating with what I call the non-criminals, those who never really were the hard core like Zarqawi and his aides and the al-Qaeda-style people," Allawi told the New York Times last week, referring to contacts between his administration and insurgents...
...Prime Minister is moving fast. A mere 24 hours after taking over, Allawi's Cabinet approved three far-reaching security measures. First, it reinstated the death penalty, which Bremer suspended a year ago. It drew up an amnesty plan that is meant to siphon Iraqi nationals from the foreign insurgents. And the Cabinet promulgated a new public-safety law that gives the government broad--some say undemocratic--anti-insurgency powers. The edict stops short of the martial law Allawi had earlier hinted at, but only just. In designated areas--like Fallujah--the government will be able to restrict movement temporarily...
Even if the police force is soon beefed up, real security will require nothing less than a functioning military capable of large-scale operations. Allawi reportedly wanted to bring back as many as five old military divisions that would have included a sizable cadre of former Baathist officers. But Saleh said the recall of army men would be done on a "case by case" basis that would involve rehiring good professional soldiers but integrating them into new divisions that would owe their allegiance "to Iraq, not to a regime or person." The Minister of Defense has asked...