Iraq ex-PM Allawi eyes old job, backed by old foes

"BAGHDAD, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Iyad Allawi reckons he could be Iraq's prime minister again after Thursday's election -- and this time, he says, it won't be Americans who put him there but, possibly, old enemies whose rebel towns he once ordered bombed.

"They know I wasn't after them," he said in an interview, chuckling at the popularity his strongman image has lately won him in a town where a year ago he gave U.S. troops the go-ahead to crush a revolt by minority Sunni Arab guerrillas.

Now, running on a broad, non-sectarian slate, the secular Shi'ite said late on Saturday he is talking to representatives of the insurgents and winning them over with promises to address their grievances and pump money into battered towns like Falluja.

"The others, of course, if they get me, they'll cut me into little pieces," he added, referring to the al Qaeda Islamists he vows to "fight from room to room" if his hopes are realised of returning to power at the head of a coalition government."
Reuters