Saddam's (and Bush's) close friend: `Allawi on AlArabiyya TV. So the pro-Allawi (and Saudi-funded station praised by NYT magazine last Sunday) TV station aired the first and second part of the Allawi bio-documentary. I taped them, and watched the first one. The right-wing Lebanese journalist, Elie Naquzi, who is a semi-advisor to Allawi according to As-Safir newspaper, conducted the interview and read the report. The questions were as probing and tough as when Larry King interviews celebrities. Here are the first two questions Allawi was asked: "We hear that you do not like formalities. You like simple things, true?" Another one: "we hear that you like Tabbulah salad, true"? Allawi confirmed those two rumors about himself. But viewers were left wondering whether this "great man" likes his hummus with extra olive oil or not? What was revealing nevertheless was his confirmation that he was a close friend of Saddam, and that Saddam read the obituary of Allawi's mother in his own voice on Iraqi radio in 1968. I did not know the extent of the friendship between those two war criminals (Saddam and Allawi). But Allawi grossly exaggerated his role in the 1968 coup: (a dubious "honor" he is claiming for himself). No account of the coup (called Revolution in Ba`this lexicon) mentions `Allawi by name. Allawi also bragged that he lived in the neighborhood where "the best people" lived (he named the Chalabi and Jadirji families). He also said that he advanced fast in the Ba`thist hierarchy because he "absorbed" better and faster than his comrades in the party.