August 23, 2007

Who’s Behind “Allawi-for-Iraq.com”?

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IraqSlogger reports that on August 17, White House-connected lobby powerhouse, Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR), purchased a domain name, Allawi-for-Iraq.com.*

The timing was interesting. As Slogger’s Christina Davidson reports, former Iraqi prime minister Ayad “Allawi argued in an August 18 Washington Post op-ed that Iraq will descend into chaos unless Maliki is replaced as prime minister.”

Presumably, replaced by himself, he might have been hinting.

A couple months ago, I reported here on BGR’s lobbying for another of Iraq’s players, the Kurdistan Regional Government.

*Update: Whois registration for the Allawi domain below the fold:

Whois Record
Registrant:
Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Inc
1275 Pennsylvania Avenue, 10th Floor
Tenth Floor
Washington, DC 20004
US

Domain Name: ALLAWI-FOR-IRAQ.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Inc
1275 Pennsylvania Avenue, 10th Floor
Tenth Floor
Washington, DC 20004
US
202-333-4936 fax: 202-833-9392

Record expires on 17-Aug-2008.
Record created on 17-Aug-2007.
Database last updated on 23-Aug-2007 11:18:59 EDT.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS7.WORLDNIC.COM 205.178.190.4
NS8.WORLDNIC.COM 205.178.189.4

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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