NEWSWEEK: New Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi Reportedly Cut Off Suspect's Hand With Ax, Shot Captive Terrorist, According to Stories Circulating in Baghdad
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040718/nysu008a_1.htmlAllawi's concrete accomplishments are few. He's inspired the feeling of progress more than the substance. And U.S. officials say privately he may actually have planted the stories about summary executions as part of a psychological smoke-and-mirrors game. "He wants to project that dual role -- to the West as a committed democrat, and to the Iraqis as a tough guy who got things done," says one diplomat. If Allawi is really going to impose order, he'll find it ever harder to look like a democrat. "You can have an overdose of democracy," a young Iraqi translator tried to explain last week to the American colonel he works for. "That was our problem. We need somebody strong."
Allawi has flooded the streets with cops, many of them from the old regime. He's started a new General Security Directorate, otherwise known as the secret police. Every few days his troops attack neighborhoods where criminals have gathered, rounding up men by the hundreds, cracking heads and sometimes fighting running gun battles. Iraqi TV shows footage of exultant policemen firing their guns into the air as they leave the scene of a roundup. Magistrates have been put on 24-hour duty to handle the intake of prisoners- 527 from one raid alone. "He's tough as nails on security," says the U.S. official. "Tougher than we are."
Police lieutenant Mutaz Abdul Aziz, 26, who's taken part in two raids so far this month, tells Newsweek he has a new sense of pride in his job. He and his fellow cops didn't get much respect when they were working with the Americans. A couple of months ago, for instance, Aziz was bringing a suspected kidnapper to a police station. The perp began resisting at the doorway, and Aziz smacked him around. An American soldier on duty stepped in. "The Americans arrested me!" he says. "It was humiliating. I realized then that the Americans would never understand this country. We know best how to deal with Iraqis."
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