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AAI in the News

Baghdad Calling -- Collect

By Al Kamen
The Washington Post
Posted on Friday October 1, 2004

Maybe part of the problem with Iraq is that it’s a very tough crowd to please. Take the reaction of one caller on “Viewpoint,” an award-winning, call-in show that airs Sundays on WNVC in Virginia.

Host JamesZogby of the Arab American Institute was discussing Iraqi interim Prime Minister AyadAllawi’s visit here with Gen. WilliamNash when a call came from Baghdad.

Allawi’s speech to Congress may have played well in the United States, the caller said—in accented but very good English—but not so well in Baghdad. Part of the problem was how Allawi kept talking about things getting better in Baghdad, the caller said, when they are not.

And one of the most disturbing things for Iraqis, the caller told Zogby, was hearing their own prime minister’s speech translated into Arabic because Allawi addressed Congress in English.

Puh-leeze. So now they want the administration to feed Allawi his lines in Arabic?