Tough Guy Allawi

Wrist in a cast.

In the interview on Thursday at his heavily guarded residence in the Green Zone compound in Baghdad, Allawi [said] that he lost his temper at his Iraqi aides and pounded the table so hard that a bone snapped. "I was angry," he said.

  Seattle Times article

Maybe he was angry when he allegedly shot those prisoners in the head as soon as he was installed as president.

This time, he was pissed about that al-Douri capture bungle.

Visiting Allawi at his sprawling residence is a short course in just how bad the situation has become for anybody associated with the U.S. purpose in Iraq. To reach the house is to navigate an obstacle course of checkpoints, with Iraqi police cars and Humvees parked athwart a zigzag course of concrete barriers.

An hour or more is taken up with body searches and sniffing by dogs, while U.S. soldiers man turreted machine guns. A boxlike infrared imaging device can detect the body heat of anybody approaching through a neighboring playground. The final security ring is manned by CIA-trained guards from Iraqi Kurdistan.

This is the man who has been chosen to lead Iraq to the haven of a democratic future, but he is sealed off about as completely as he could be from ordinary Iraqis, in the virtual certainty that insurgents will kill him if they ever get a clear shot.

Sounds like bubble boy tough guy Allawi has a lot in common with bubble boy tough guy Bush.