Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Allawi allegations redux

In July last year Fairfax correspondent Paul McGeough wrote a damning story about the Iraqi Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, in which he claimed that Allawi had personally executed as many as six suspected insurgents. The story ran on the front page of The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday, July 17. And then it sank like a stone.

A few short wire pieces ran in the following days, but no major US news organisation picked up the story. Newsweek touched on it in order to dismiss the allegation. McGeough publicly defended his story, but there was still no reaction.

Despite not getting the attention it might have the story has never really gone away. And now the New Yorker has picked it up. Jon Anderson writes:
"During my visit to Jordan, a well-known former government minister told me that an American official had confirmed that the killings took place, saying to him, "What a mess we’re in—we got rid of one son of a bitch only to get another.'"

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