Officials blast Amal Clooney’s behavior during meeting with Iraq’s UN ambassador
George Clooney’s human rights lawyer wife nearly caused an international incident at the Iraqi UN Mission in Manhattan when she lectured the ambassador on ISIS and showed up with an unauthorized camera crew, The Post has learned.
Lebanese-born attorney Amal Clooney originally demanded to meet with the prime minister at the mission during the UN General Assembly, but that was rejected and she settled for the country’s UN Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim, two Iraqi officials confirmed.
She arrived with Yazidi refugee and Noble Peace Prize nominee Nadia Murad on Sept. 15, and, right from the get-go, she used a “dismissive, lecturing tone” with Alhakim while discussing how to bring captured ISIS fighters to justice, one official said.
The ambassador and his staff tried to offer her a “full picture” outlining each group targeted by ISIS, but Clooney was “completely uninterested” and “tone deaf to the whole thing,” the official said, noting, “It was highly offensive. I have had cousins decapitated.”
Alhakim, who had 65 of his own family members exterminated by Saddam Hussein’s ruthless regime, became infuriated with Clooney and, at one point, stated to her, “This is highly insulting. This is very unacceptable,” the official said.
Despite Clooney’s “obnoxious” behavior, the tense meeting lasted about an hour and 20 minutes because the Iraqi diplomats wanted “to be respectful to Nadia,” the official noted.
When the meeting finally ended, the parties went downstairs to the lobby, where Clooney’s “media team” carrying film equipment had shown up unannounced — a violation of standard protocols that required pre-approval by the mission, the official said.
Clooney requested an on-camera interview with the ambassador, but was quickly shut down and escorted outside with her posse.