"A former Ba'athist official, Dr Allawi headed the Iraqi National Accord group, which passed intelligence to British and other Western agencies that Saddam's forces could deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes. This claim was reflected in the British government's dossier on Iraq before the invasion of 2003. His links to the Iraqi establishment and foreign intelligence agencies made him the obvious choice of the US-led coalition when sovereignty was transferred in 2004. Dr Allawi's Iraqi National List secured less than 15 per cent of the vote after a CIA plan to spend tens of millions of dollars supporting its allies in 2005 was shelved. Western diplomats in Baghdad play down Dr Allawi's chances of a comeback. One Western diplomat said: "He is equally mistrusted by all the factions, so I don't see him building a working coalition.""