The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace hosted a discussion with former Iraqi prime minister and current Parliament member of Iraq, Ayad Allawi. Allawi said the American military surge caused some successes, but the situation in Iraq is still very fragile. He said the Iraqi government needs to capitalize on whatever fleeting stability the surge may have caused to make progress towards peace and trust.

He said the current sectarian government will not be able to uphold the nation. He said the prevalent sectarianism in the Iraq only encourages the spread of terrorism and extremism. He hopes Iraqis will one day be seen as just Iraqis, and not by their ethnicities. He said activation of the UN and other regional organizations could encourage the international community to be involved in promoting stability. His most emphatic point was that stability must be established first, before bureaucratic details can be considered.

At a discussion hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former Iraqi Prime Minister and current member of Parliament, Ayad Allawi, describes the failures of the Parliament to create democracy. He says millions of Iraqis would not be fleeing their country if it was a free democracy. He says fourteen-year-old Iraqi girls fled the country to be prostitutes in Syria rather than remain in unstable Iraq. (1:03)

 

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Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi says that the U.S. and Iraq are at a critical stage where crucial decisions have to be made on a measured and responsible withdrawal of multi national forces from Iraq. He says that Iraq is in the process of negotiating a security agreement with the U.S. to organize the security relations between the two countries and agree on the framework for final withdrawal. Allawi explains that by making a transparent agreement which attains the approval of the Iraqi Parliament and people will create the right environment for trust and friendship. (1:20)

 

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At the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the possible extension of the UN Mandate for Iraq, Chairman Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) talked about reviewing the role that the Iraqi Parliament expected to play in the approval of the extension of the UN Mandate to December 31, 2008. Delahunt explained that members to Prime Minister al-Maliki and the UN Security Council called for the inclusion of a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, otherwise they would not support the extension of the UN Mandate. (more…)