[NYTr] Iraq: Allawi Says US Lobby Firm to Help Push Maliki Out

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The Washington Post - Aug 27, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/26/AR2007082601261_pf.html

Lobbyists Hired to Press Maliki, Former Premier Says

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer

Former interim Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi, who is trying to put
together a new coalition to replace the current Baghdad government
headed by Nouri al-Maliki, said yesterday that a powerful Washington
lobbying firm is working on his behalf, funded by an Iraqi whom he
cannot identify.

Allawi confirmed on CNN's "Late Edition" yesterday that Barbour
Griffith & Rogers had been hired "to help us advocate our views, the
views of the nationalistic Iraqis, the nonsectarian Iraqis."

Allawi said reports that Barbour Griffith is to receive $300,000 over
six months are accurate, "but that these figures are really much less
than the figures that are being paid by others, our adversaries."

Asked the source of the funds, Allawi said, "I cannot unfortunately
divulge his name," adding: "He is a supporter of our program."

Allawi, who is Shiite and a former Baathist, said he "wouldn't frankly
be willing to become a prime minister in a sectarian regime . . . but I
would play my role in Iraq in whatever capacity is required to change
Iraq into a nonsectarian country."

Allawi was appointed interim prime minister in June 2004 -- reportedly
at the urging of Robert D. Blackwill, President Bush's special envoy to
Iraq, and others -- and was replaced in April 2005, after the Iraqi
elections. Five months after Allawi's appointment, Blackwill left the
government to join Barbour Griffith.

Allawi's hiring of the firm was first reported last week by
IraqSlogger.com. A senior adviser to the firm is Philip D. Zelikow, who
resigned as counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in
December.

Another of Barbour Griffith's clients is the Kurdistan Regional
Government, according to the company's Web site.