What Abadi told me about Iranian missiles in Iraq

By Dildar Harki

This past Sunday I met the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi along with a number of other journalists in Baghdad. I had brought with me several questions one of which was about reports of the production and deployment of Iranian missiles in Iraq.

While waiting for all the journalists—ten of us in total—to arrive at the reception area of Abadi’s office a member of his press team came and handed us each a piece of paper and said that we could each ask two questions only.

I immediately consulted my colleagues on the phone about which two questions they thought were most pressing and which ones I could afford to let go. We agreed to ask the prime minister the following two questions:

One: What did he think of the fact that Kurdish parties had not yet decided which Iraqi coalition to join?

Two: Why was he not willing to negotiate with the Kurds over Kirkuk?

One of my questions was about the Iranian missiles topic and I thought perhaps one of the other journalists there would ask him that question.

Then minutes before the meeting with Abadi started we were told we could each ask one question only. It was a last minute thing.

My turn came and I asked my two questions about the Kurds and their maneuvers to join an Iraqi coalition and Abadi’s inflexibility on Kirkuk.

“We did not force any individual or party to leave Kirkuk,” the Iraqi prime minister replied.

Hearing that I remembered the torching of homes in Tuz Khurmatu and took the microphone again and asked what he thought of that.

“It was a crime,” he said.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to ask the prepared list of questions I had brought with me and none of the other nine journalists touched any of those topics either.

But at the end of the meeting, Abadi himself said, “It’s strange that none of you asked me anything about the reports of the production and deployment of Iranian missiles in Iraq,”

I seized the chance and said, “Are those reports true?”

“Absolutely not,” Abadi quipped. “It’s all false and whoever is certain of that should tell us where and which location those factories are,”

“Besides, why should there be Iranian missile factories in Iraq?” he said and ended the meeting.