Anyone else find it odd when Bush appointed a car bomber as Iraq's first post-Saddam leader?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/09/politics/09ALLA.html?ei=5007&en=f6ed30bebf50f090&ex=1402113600&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=print&position=

June 9, 2004
NEW PREMIER
Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Iraq Leader Helped Agency in 90's Attacks
By JOEL BRINKLEY

ASHINGTON, June 8 — Iyad Allawi, now the designated prime minister of Iraq, ran an exile organization intent on deposing Saddam Hussein that sent agents into Baghdad in the early 1990's to plant bombs and sabotage government facilities under the direction of the C.I.A., several former intelligence officials say.

Dr. Allawi's group, the Iraqi National Accord, used car bombs and other explosive devices smuggled into Baghdad from northern Iraq, the officials said. Evaluations of the effectiveness of the bombing campaign varied, although the former officials interviewed agreed that it never threatened Saddam Hussein's rule.

No public records of the bombing campaign exist, and the former officials said their recollections were in many cases sketchy, and in some cases contradictory. They could not even recall exactly when it occurred, though the interviews made it clear it was between 1992 and 1995.

The Iraqi government at the time claimed that the bombs, including one it said exploded in a movie theater, resulted in many civilian casualties. But whether the bombings actually killed any civilians could not be confirmed because, as a former C.I.A. official said, the United States had no significant intelligence sources in Iraq then.

One former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was based in the region, Robert Baer, recalled that a bombing during that period "blew up a school bus; schoolchildren were killed." Mr. Baer, a critic of the Iraq war, said he did not recall which resistance group might have set off that bomb.

[Demeter]

1. The Man Who Put Brownie On the National Stage--That George W?

No, it's totally in character. I'd never expect less.

[crim son]

2. Frankly, no.

Why would anybody be surprised?