Alsumaria: You submitted your resignation for the third time, and you were strongly insistent upon it being accepted, why did you submit a resignation request for the third time?

Mr. Adel: In the name of God the Merciful, the submitting of one’s resignation is a usual political exercise among politicians, unfortunately, it had become absent from the political culture of Iraq for certain reasons. An official resigns for many reasons; because of an emergency, accident, or something related to his/her responsibilities toward his ministry or people. Thus he/she resigns in order to give the opportunity for others to trace, investigate and scrutinize.

This is one of the habitual practices in all countries of the world, but even in Iraq during the monarchy era and in the first phase of the Republic of Iraq these resignations occurred. But, during the period of Saddam Hussein any resignation request was considered to be a conspiracy and no one was able to resign at the time of Saddam Hussein. During that period officials were either dismissed or remained in service. In 2003 the requests for resignations were few. Abdel Basset Turki had resigned from the government of the Governing Council, Ibrahim Bahr Alulum had resigned from the Ministry of Oil , few others resigned. The reasons for my resignation is that I am part of the executive branch, and when I feel that I do not participate in the decision making process, and take political responsibilities, especially policies that I think have lots of deficiencies, resignation becomes something natural. I believe it is true for the politician to defend their image, performance and name.

Alsumaria: When you submitted your resignation for the third time it was accepted, and we will talk about the position of President of the Republic, you decided to remain silent throughout this period. After President Talabani accepted your resignation, you broke your silence by talking, why?

Mr. Adel: Iraq’s political arena today is full of wrangling, and many of my brothers appear on the media expressing their views even before the issue becomes clear, and even before they know the contents and context of what happened. They just read news subtitles and then start commenting with heavy comments, and the commentary is a vision that is far from the cause and origin of the incident itself. I do not like to enter into this wrangling. The resignation of the Vice President of the Republic is an event that carries a heavy political weight, and I liked to stay in its boundaries. I waited for the approval of the President, it would have been unreasonable for me to enter into discussions and explanations. The media will ask what the reasons are, and what are the motives? I wanted to respect the covenant between me and the President, and the covenant between me and my brothers and my colleagues, before I spoke to  the media and give a  response to a question I might be asked, and therefore give the public an integrated view which I believe in for right or wrong.

Alsumaria: Something that was published in the media was that President Talabani was pushed or forced morally to accept your resignation, and that he said to you that you are the one who convinced him to become President of the Republic, and today you leave your position?

Mr. Adel: Yes, of course, the relationship between me and President Jalal is a very close relationship. Our relationship has lasted nearly 40 years, from the exact and detailed working and struggle in every sense, and in all military, political, cultural, dimensions. We are friends, brothers and we have worked together on key issues. Our relationship is a relationship of consultation, and a relationship of sharing opinions. President Talabani, at first was unwilling to take over the presidency, and many of our brothers and officials went to him when he was in Sulaymaniyah to convince him.  He did not respond to these requests and it is here that he claims that I had persuaded him to take up the office. Actually there were discussions and debates between us. I went to Dokan and sat with him, and explained why he should be the President of the Republic, and the benefits to being President of the Republic. I defended the President, and I think he is really a safety valve at this stage, and a man of wide experience. This is the cause of persuasion and certainly he was refusing, but whenever I go to him and tell him the situation is difficult and the people are wondering is it serious? Are they not serious?."

Alsumaria: And you managed to convince him?

Mr. Adel: Yes

Alsumaria: But President Talabani in turn tried to convince you not to resign, because you resigned twice and then he accepted your third resignation request. How did you see that position as no longer being able to satisfy your ambition to work and why was it that the President was not able to convince you otherwise?

Mr. Adel: I was hesitant from the beginning, and that subject was brought up after the election, even before the election, I said that I did not like to renew candidacy for the position.

Alsumaria: The first time you did not want to talk about this and now you are back, why?

Adel: I've got to imagine that that performance should be different from the current performance; the performance of institutions as a whole. We as officials have to be accountants of our performance, and not to throw the responsibility on others. We must hold ourselves accountable, and I'm not very happy with the performance of the Iraqi government, not even with the performance of the Iraqi parliament, and the performance of institutions as a whole. This is not the kind of performance that is required for a country that is moving towards democracy, towards building institutions , and establishing Federal foundations. The country is opening to the world, and is trying to move beyond the difficulties of old existing problems. Iraq is trying to reconcile its internal differences, trying to reconcile with its history, and trying to reconcile with its surroundings, thus our performance should be better than the current performance. When you review the issues being brought up in discussions and in formal meetings then you have an opinion, one of the two. But either your opinion will be taken and you will become responsible for the results, or your opinion will not be taken. My resignation  represents a word for the brothers that this current way has been employed  for eight years and despite the difficulties and terrorism and all other factors beyond our will, some factors in our will still fall short. They are in need of serious review. This is a controversy in the way of justification, and the way to hold the others responsible. They say “It is not my responsibility, its the other’s responsibility”, the government places the blame on parliament and the parliament blames the government,

This will not yield any results, and if we say that repeatedly it becomes a kind of anesthesia and is degrading. We say that the right thing is this way, and if you think the right thing is in another way, good, then bear the responsibility, and we will be supportive. But, we will be out of the position of responsibility and resolution-making.

Alsumaria: Ok, resignation, I would explain this resignation in four ways, and you tell me which one is the right one. The options are: Was the resignation request because of your reading and personal analyzing, or it may be the desire of an entity such as ISCI, or as expressed by Sayed Alhakim and what he called in compliance with religious authority reservations? So which one is right, or is it a combination of all these?

Mr. Adel: Yes, the fourth, before this question, or before these four options I've mentioned it first, I was restless. This restlessness was repeated so many times before that I remember I submitted my resignation after the shrine bombing in Samarra in 2006; I submitted my resignation not because I am a party in the security file, but as a message to the brothers on how we must learn how to pursue the issues. The issues are not pursued only in the diagnosis of the mistakes of others, but through the diagnosis of our mistakes. We start with looking at our mistakes, no one prompts you to resign but to lift the veil of immunity for yourself so you can voluntarily lift it from everyone. This makes everyone transparent to the public, and this is the principle of spreading the culture of resignation. I mentioned earlier, even before the elections and after the elections, I said to President Talabani, “I do not prefer assume a site because I predict future tracks, they will be the same tracks in the past four years”. And then after that the president convinced me and we sat down also and prepared a detailed road map on what we do in the presidency, on January 2, 2011, seven months before this commitment we did this then I will accept it, but months passed by.

And the names were not submitted to the Council of Representatives, and as I mentioned there was haggling, and whether the site is necessary, or unnecessary, and weather the presidency is ceremonial or honorary. I wrote on this subject that this site is supervisory and not honorary and has important powers in accordance with the Constitution, but is disabled. So I submitted to the president to withdraw my candidacy and I said in the written communication , and it will be published, I told him that I am not going to pull the withdrawal of the nomination, I will be watching and see what will happen. If it was good then this is good, but if things continue in this scuffing manner then I will not assume this position. Since I was in the job already me and my brother VP Alhashemi continued to do our job, and because of the President's travel to Washington I was asked to assume his duties during his absence. During his absence, the Parliament voted so I had to assume his duties otherwise a vacuum would have formed. A real gap would occur because I was mandated to carry out the tasks, so as soon as he returned I wrote a letter of resignation. As soon as the President returned and before leaving to Morocco, which was his last station, I sent my secretary to his secretary, and he handed my letter to his secretary. I requested to have my letter in the Office of the President as soon as he gets to his office. After the election I noted that the public was not satisfied, and several parties, including the religious authorities were not comfortable with this election. These three factors met in the fourth factor, thus, it is the outcome of internal convictions coincided with the position of my brother in ISCI, who agrees with the position of religious authorities, which are not satisfied. The public is not satisfied with this. All was not satisfied with concept of the method of election.

Alsumaria: There is a malicious reading, or a second reading says that Maliki's government is facing sharp curves, and that the Adel Abdul Mahdi resignation may have come because of other conditions in the country. The talk that took place on the withdrawal of confidence, and perhaps there is not a lot of candidates that are qualified to take the role of Prime Minister if the government of Mr. Maliki ended, what do you say on this?

Mr. Adel: You said that these were malicious readings , there is a difference as I said. I submitted my resignation in the year 2006, and I mentioned this  during several newspaper interviews that I am always in a positions to assume in the political institutions that my resignation request is ready and in my pocket. I mean the principle of resignation is a very important principle to the Politician, and one does not do with the circumstantial situation, whether the government, for example, is not performing well or other things. The talks are related to a person with specific responsibility, and does this responsibility take its dimensions? Are opinions put forward to be taken out? The issue has nothing to do with malice, but rather related to political performance.

Alsumaria: After the resignation, of course, after successive resignations for more than three months, a series of meetings were held between you, Dr. Iyad Allawi and Ahmed Chalabi. These meetings have raised questions in other words that it’s unreasonable to say that during these meetings your were just talking about other things?

Mr. Adel: Myself, Iyad and Ahmed did not stop meeting each other for 55 years, we are friends and have political ties, we agree sometimes and disagree other times.

Alsumaria: A lot of people always wonder about Erbil agreement. This is because a group of leaders of blocs say that the Maliki government has not implemented this requirement based on Erbil agreement. What was agreed upon in Erbil agreement? People do not know much about this agreement?

Mr. Adel: It was published in several locations and points were listed on all cases from the formation of the government to the issues related to all parties.

Alsumaria: But these were not mentioned in the agreement and the Aliraqiah List says often that according to the Erbil agreement, the Minister of Defense to be appointed from their list. Are there any secret items in the Erbil agreement.

Mr. Adel: To my knowledge there are no secret items in the agreement. Many aspects of the agreement were written on papers in full detail and others remained as principles based on the fact that they will be mentioned in detail later because there was not enough time to continue. There was acceleration in the formation of the government, thus, there are other things that are written, and there are other things that are principles. For example the preparation of rules of procedure for the Council of Ministers, these rules did not address all issues, thus there is a need to address the number of rules of procedure of the Council of Minister. For example, the National Council of the Supreme policies or whatever the title is, there are some minor details, including the process of the formation of the council and the election of the head of the Council. All of these issues exist, but they are not written on paper. For example, the Security ministries should be for an independent. For example, Aliraqiah had the option to nominate the Defense Minister.

Alsumaria: With respect to the security file, in 2010 you talked about the readiness of security forces and the security breaches. Gaps that terrorist elements sneak through which destroys a lot of their work and discussion is under way today on the U.S. presence. How do you assess the readiness of Iraqi security forces?

Mr. Adel: There is significant progress. The significant progress has been achieved at least in number, and also to some extent in the quality, but I think that the security system is still not qualified, and the evidence is the continuation of and subversive actions of terrorist groups that carry out their heinous acts. These things show that the security file is still a hot issue, not a file that is placed on the shelf or takes third or fourth priority. I personally do not think that the presence of troops has to do with these stories, and the reason is very simple. It is said that we do not have troops, and troops would not be ready until 2020, and therefore we are not able to defend our sovereignty or that the cause of the reasons for the existence of forces or internal security is because of the presence of the troops. In both cases, Iraq had an army of a million people, and was unable to defend its borders, and foreign troops reached Baghdad. During the past twenty years we have seen armies and tanks and planes and this cold  steel did not defend the sovereignty of Iraq. The foreign troops were just 170,000, and also the security situation was deteriorating. The issue of foreign troops and their presence or absence is related to the readiness of our security forces, and I think that this entry is inaccurate. We have a security agreement which expires in 2011, and I think we should end it. Formats for future relations must be discussed from their political, financial, security parts, and the intelligence must be discussed in another way. The security agreement decided that it expires in 2011 and not to be extended, any other relationship with the United States or others, should open to another discussion.

Alsumaria: In your description of the performance of Mr. Nuri Almaliki,  you said in 2010 that he had walked the country's policy away from the institutional and he wants to put the concept of the strong man in place. There was a personification of the state, this was the rating for the first phase, this evaluation is still in force on the mandate of Mr. Nuri Almaliki in his handling of the state?

Mr. Adel: Yes, I still think that there are a lot of personalization in the management of the decisions of the government and state institutions; they do not get activated properly.

Alsumaria: Personification by the head of the government?

Mr. Adel: By all officials, even by heads of departments. If I check any circle you will find that the head is making the decisions not the law, not contexts  and protocols of any department that entitles these officials to do what they have to do.

Personalization has been part of the political process in Iraq for decades, and we are within these contexts and practice them, and we must get out of the habit. We have to learn how to get out of them, and make ourselves work for the institutions, and not to consider the institutions as instruments in our hands, to use them as we like. Democracy means not only elections, democracy means the building of institutions, when the rule of institutions exist, the citizen are assured.

Alsumaria: This mentality in the administration of the State which you described starts from the top of the pyramid and ending with the base and small staff, including that Prime Minister and the Prime Minister from within this system. Is the U.S. satisfied with the way Mr. Nuri is administering things this way?

Mr. Adel: I do not know, ask the United States, I cannot answer on behalf of them.

Alsumaria: Mr. Adel, ISCI and you are always talking about the round table, you were the first to put forward such a concept. This means that in your views today, unlike the others, that the formation of the government cannot be done through a single color, or a government of majority?

Mr. Adel: There is a difference between the government of majority and a single color. A single color is impossible, Iraq cannot be governed as a single color, otherwise it will be run only by foreign tools or through a style of oppression or tyranny. There is no second way. Government of majority is possible, but does not mean that the majority must be, as they say, only the Shiites or Sunnis or Kurds or Turkmen. It’s possible to form a political majority, and in my view it’s difficult to form a political majority before working on the formation of a political minority,

Alsumaria: How do you read what happened in the last weeks of the waves and ripples as a result of the statements of Mr. Osama Najafi?

Mr. Adel: I think that this is not a healthy debate. One day we in the United Iraqi Alliance raised the slogan of federalism, not only the ISCI, all parties at the time raised the slogan of federalism, and we were accused by the other party on division and bias to foreign countries. Now there are statements, federalism is a constitutional principle that should be defended, with everything put forward within the framework of the constitution and it should be discussed within  its constitutional context.

Alsumaria: Do you have a different position from other Iraqi political actors with regard to the port of Mubarak?

Mr. Adel: I think that all issues, with Iran, with Turkey, with Kuwait, means we must strengthen our relations with these countries. Problems need relationships in order to be solved. We do not need to communicate through the media before we check. The Parliament presented two reports, the first by the Ministry of Foreign and Second by Ministry of Transportation. The first report said that it does not affect anything, the port just three kilometers from our territorial waters, but inside the Ministry of Transport there is talk that this issue affects very much. These issues need to be addressed, especially with our neighbor Kuwait, one we have entered into several wars. Because of Kuwait, we do not want to renew this issue again, this issue must be resolved. I cannot suppose malice and ill will on Iraq's neighbors this way. Iraq is a strong country, able to defend its interests,  thus if there was a better way to defend the country then it must be done through relationships, close relationships. For example Mexico, where there are many suffering in poverty, every day thousands of migrants entering the United States. This requires the U.S. to enhance its relations with Mexico, in order to solve this problem, not to put tanks and pieces of military and kill people who cross the border. Whenever we have problems with a country, we must strengthen our relationship. We call them neighbors, and brothers, and we have a common history with them.

Alsumaria: How do you evaluate what is going on from the political movement and the struggles and dialogues between the government and other political parties, and the other part of the question is, how do you read the future of the government of Mr. Maliki, at the level of services?

Adel: The answer to the second question is easy, the level of service is not good and we are still in a vicious circle. We did not implement any real mechanisms, we know that this is just a first stage, and other phases are to follow. We have a final stage, in all the files except for one,  oil. We did not in fact enter into reforms, no land reform, reforming  industry, power or in water, almost everything except oil. We entered already in the process of stopping the depletion of oil wells, we have an attrition rate of 100 thousand barrels that is now stopped, and production began to rise , exports began to rise, and this example is a model. Politics needs courage and needs radical decisions.

The answer to the first question, that the dialogue is shy and hesitant, is not true. Courtesy is taking the greater part, words are not supported by documentation.