A Take On Ayad Allawi

Old Pal Ken Layne has a fair bit to say about the Iraqi leader.

Allawi, a secular Shiite from a wealthy merchant family, was a spy and -- maybe! -- assassin for Saddam Hussein. As a high-ranking officer in the dreaded Mukharabat, the Ba'athist secret police, he was Saddam's friend, colleague and eventual rival. His Baghdad medical degree is said to be phony; the Ba'ath Party gave it to him so he could travel Europe on a World Health Organization grant and infiltrate Arab student groups. Posted by Jim at September 23, 2004 04:50 PM