Ali A. Allawi

Ali A. Allawi "is a senior adviser to the Prime Minister of Iraq. Since the coalition’s invasion of Iraq, he served as his country’s first postwar civilian Minister of Defence and was elected to the Transitional National Assembly as a member of the United Iraqi Alliance."

"Since the Coalition's invasion of Iraq, Ali A. Allawi served as his country's first postwar civilian Minister of Defense, was elected to the Transitional National Assembly as a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, and was appointed Minister of Finance under Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaffari. He divides his time between London and Baghdad."

"From September 2003 to June 2004, Ali Allawi served as the Interim Minister of Trade in the new Government of Iraq. In April 2004, he was also appointed to the post of the first Interim Minister of Defence of Iraq. In April 2005, he was appointed to the post of Minister of Finance in the Transitional Iraq Government.

"Born in Baghdad in December 1947, he attended MIT from which he graduated in 1968 with a BSc in Civil Engineering. He continued his postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics in Regional Planning, and he went on to obtain an MBA from Harvard University in 1971.

"He joined the Young Professionals Program of the World Bank Group in Washington in 1971, where he spent a number of years as an investment officer in the Capital Markets Department of the World Bank/IFC Group. Following a period as a consultant to the Arab Fund in Kuwait, he co-founded, in 1978, Arab International Finance, a merchant bank, in London. He remained its managing director until 1988, where together with outside investors, he acquired certain of its assets to form the Intercapital Group, of which he became Chairman. In 1992, he merged the Intercapital Group with a Swiss-based financial group to form Fisa Group, which manages two hedge funds in emerging market securities and biotechnology.

"Presently, he is Chairman of Progas Holdings, an infrastructure development company. It has recently completed and owns the largest integrated LPG gas import, storage and distribution company in Pakistan. Progas is also developing two major power stations also in Pakistan.

"He had been active in the opposition to the Baathist regime since 1968, participating in all the main Iraqi opposition conferences, from the first, in Vienna in 1992 to the last one in London in December, 2002.

"Between 1999 and 2001, he was a Senior Associate Member at St.Antony’s College, Oxford University, at its Middle East Centre where he completed a book on The Political Memoirs of Abd el-Amir Allawi (in Arabic).

"In September, 2003, Ali Allawi was appointed to be the Minister of Trade of Iraq under the Iraq Governing Council. In April, 2004, he was appointed to be Iraq’s first post-war civilian Minister of Defence. In January 2005, he was elected to Iraq’s Transitional National Assembly as a member of the United Iraqi Alliance.

"In April, 2005, he was appointed to be the Minister of Finance in the Transitional Government headed by Dr.Ibrahim al-Jaffari.

"Ali Allawi has appeared on a number of TV public affairs programmes throughout the world, including a detailed interview with the BBC’s Hardtalk programme presenter, Tim Sebastian on May 28, 2004. He was featured in detailed interviews in April 2004 by Business Week magazine and in January 2006 by Foreign Policy magazine He has delivered numerous public lectures on Iraq, most recently at St.Antony’s College, Oxford and the Royal Society for Arts. He has served on a number of international political and economic panels including at the World Economic Forum in Davos, at the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House, and at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings.

"He has finished writing a book, The Occupation of Iraq, to be published by Yale University Press in March 2007.

"In January 2007, Ali Allawi was given the Robert and Joanna Bendetson Global Public Diplomacy Award by the Institute for Global Leadership, Tufts University."

Related Sourcewatch

 * Australian Iraqi Forum