Doug Lorimer
Two days earlier than scheduled, Paul Bremer, Washington's proconsul in Iraq, flew out of Baghdad. He left behind a hollow sovereignty, headed by Iyad Allawi — a former member of Saddam Hussein's secret police who went on the CIA's payroll in 1992. According to the June 9 New York Times, he carried out terrorist bombings in Baghdad in the mid-1990s.
Allawi was selected to become Iraqi interim prime minister on June 1 — ostensibly by UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who candidly told the media on June 2, "Bremer's the dictator of Iraq... Nothing happens without his agreement in this country."
The five-minute June 28 "handover" ceremony was held in great secrecy in the "Green Zone" — the huge fortified headquarters of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority. The zone, like so much else about the occupation, has simply been renamed. Now called the "International Zone", it has become the central office of the US embassy in Iraq. The new ambassador, John Negroponte, was the US ambassador in Honduras in the early 1980s, from where the covert US war against Nicaragua was supervised.
The June 29 Washington Post observed: "The secrecy and brevity of the ceremony were in keeping with the precarious future of the Iraq that Bremer built. Setting out with a vision to transform Iraq into a model of Western democracy and capitalism for the rest of the Arab world, he has left behind a country freed from a tyrannical past but also with grave security threats, a sputtering economy and an appointed government with little popular support."
An opinion poll conducted for the CPA in mid-March, which has not been publicly released, found that 61% of Iraqis surveyed were opposed to Allawi becoming Iraq's interim PM, according to the June 15 Newsweek.
Allawi's Interim Government of Iraq (IGI) will be totally dependent for its survival upon the presence of 138,000 US and 23,000 allied occupation troops, who have been authorised by the UN Security Council to undertake military operations without even the formal approval of the IGI.
The same Security Council resolution incorporated the US, British and Australian occupation troops — previously called the "coalition forces" — into the UN-mandated "multinational force under unified command". This term had previously only covered the contingents of foreign troops — from Poland, Italy, Spain, etc. — that the US was authorised to recruit as non-combatant "peacekeepers".
The IGI is nominally in control of the US-recruited Iraqi "security forces", currently made up of a 7100-strong army (though only one battalion of 700 is reportedly ready to be deployed), the 35,000-member paramilitary Iraqi National Guard and 85,000 Iraqi police officers. However these will operate at the direction of US military commanders as part of the "multinational force".
"Iraqi security forces proved unready to take over security responsibility from the multinational force, as demonstrated by their collapse during April 2004", a report prepared for the heads of the international relations committees of the US Senate and House of Representatives.
According to the report, issued on June 29, as much as 82% of the Iraqi units deployed in western Iraq and around the city of Fallujah in April deserted. The desertion rate hit 49% in the units deployed in and around Baghdad, while in towns like Baquba, Tikrit, Karbala, Najaf and Kut, it stood at 30%.
While UNSC resolution 1546 declares the IGI to be "sovereign", it is also prevented "from taking any actions affecting Iraq's destiny beyond the limited interim period until an elected transitional government of Iraq assumes office", now scheduled for January 2006.
Furthermore, the "sovereign" IGI must operate within the framework of all the edicts issued over the last 14 months by Bremer. The edicts — which range from a 15% maximum tax to allowing for 100% foreign ownership of Iraq's previously nationalised industries — carry the force of law in Iraq and supersede Iraq's own legal code if the two are in conflict.
"In his last month in power", the June 29 Boston Globe reported, "Bremer issued a flurry of orders that carry the force of law long after yesterday's handover of sovereignty. The nearly two dozen pronouncements issued in June spell out new rules on everything from how a private security contractor must obtain an operating license to what can disqualify a political party or candidate from elections."
An edict issued by Bremer the day before his departure ensures that US and allied occupation troops and US and other foreign contractors have immunity from prosecution by Iraqis for any violations of Iraqi law that they may commit.
All of Bremer's edicts will remain in effect until an elected Iraqi government comes into being or unless rescinded or revised by the IGI, a task that another Bremer-signed law allows, but only after a difficult process.
To make sure that there are no changes, US lawyers attached to the US embassy will provide "advice" to the IGI on what it can and cannot legally do. "It's incumbent upon us to provide the follow-on technical advice, so that what we have done so far doesn't become a dead letter", US Army General Scott Castle, head of the CPA's legal team, told the Guardian.
These US lawyers make up only a small number of the 1300 US staff to be employed by the US embassy. On June 29, Agence France Presse reported: "The day-to-day American presence will be a heavy one in the new Iraq, with regional [US embassy] offices opened around the country in Basra, Hilla, Mosul and Kirkuk.
"A total of 150 US advisers will be assigned to Iraq's ministries and serve as the eyes and ears of the embassy on the ground, helping to monitor the spending of the $18.4 billion in US reconstruction funds earmarked for Iraq."
These 150 US "consultants" — supplemented by 50 British and Australian "technical advisers" — will be assigned to all Iraqi ministries to act as "our eyes and ears", US deputy ambassador James Jeffrey told AFP.
From Green Left Weekly, July 7, 2004.
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