More on Iraq sovereignty

[k hanly <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well at least Bremer didnt outlaw headscarves in school.

Cheers, Ken Hanly

BAGHDAD, June 26 -- U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer has issued a raft of
edicts revising Iraq's legal code and has appointed at least two dozen
Iraqis to government jobs with multi-year terms in an attempt to promote his
concepts of governance long after the planned handover of political
authority on Wednesday.



Some of the orders signed by Bremer, which will remain in effect unless
overturned by Iraq's interim government, restrict the power of the interim
government and impose U.S.-crafted rules for the country's democratic
transition. Among the most controversial orders is the enactment of an
elections law that gives a seven-member commission the power to disqualify
political parties and any of the candidates they support.

The effect of other regulations could last much longer. Bremer has ordered
that the national security adviser and the national intelligence chief
chosen by the interim prime minister he selected, Ayad Allawi, be given
five-year terms, imposing Allawi's choices on the elected government that is
to take over next year.

Bremer also has appointed Iraqis handpicked by his aides to influential
positions in the interim government. He has installed inspectors-general for
five-year terms in every ministry. He has formed and filled commissions to
regulate communications, public broadcasting and securities markets. He
named a public-integrity commissioner who will have the power to refer
corrupt government officials for prosecution.

Some Iraqi officials condemn Bremer's edicts and appointments as an effort
to exert U.S. control over the country after the transfer of political
authority. "They have established a system to meddle in our affairs," said
Mahmoud Othman, a member of the Governing Council, a recently dissolved body
that advised Bremer for the past year. "Iraqis should decide many of these
issues."

Bremer has defended his issuance of many of the orders as necessary to
implement democratic reforms and update Iraq's out-of-date legal code. He
said he regarded the installation of inspectors-general in ministries, the
creation of independent commissions and the changes to Iraqi law as
important steps to fight corruption and cronyism, which in turn would help
the formation of democratic institutions.

"You set up these things and they begin to develop a certain life and
momentum on their own -- and it's harder to reverse course," Bremer said in
a recent interview.

As of June 14, Bremer had issued 97 legal orders, which are defined by the
U.S. occupation authority as "binding instructions or directives to the
Iraqi people" that will remain in force even after the transfer of political
authority. An annex to the country's interim constitution requires the
approval of a majority of Allawi's ministers, as well as the interim
president and two vice presidents, to overturn any of Bremer's edicts. A
senior U.S. official in Iraq noted recently that it would "not be easy to
reverse" the orders.

It appears unlikely that all of the orders will be followed. Many of them
reflect an idealistic but perhaps futile attempt to impose Western legal,
economic and social concepts on a tradition-bound nation that is reveling in
anything-goes freedom after 35 years of dictatorial rule.

The orders include rules that cap tax rates at 15 percent, prohibit piracy
of intellectual property, ban children younger than 15 from working, and a
new traffic code that stipulates the use of a car horn in "emergency
conditions only" and requires a driver to "hold the steering wheel with both
hands."

Iraq has long been a place where few people pay taxes, where most movies and
music are counterfeit, where children often hold down jobs and where traffic
laws are rarely obeyed, Iraqis note.

Other regulations promulgated by Bremer prevent former members of the Iraqi
army from holding public office for 18 months after their retirement or
resignation, stipulate a 30-year minimum sentence for people caught selling
weapons such as grenades and ban former militiamen integrated into the Iraqi
armed forces from endorsing and campaigning for political candidates. He has
also enacted a 76-page law regulating private corporations and amended an
industrial-design law to protect microchip designs. Those changes were
intended to facilitate the entry of Iraq into the World Trade Organization,
even though the country is so violent that the no commercial flights are
allowed to land at Baghdad's airport.

Some of the new rules attempt to introduce American approaches to fighting
crime. An anti-money-laundering law requires banks to collect detailed
personal information from customers seeking to make transactions greater
than &dol;3,500, while the Commission on Public Integrity has been given the
power to reward whistleblowers with 25 percent of the funds recovered by the
government from corrupt practices they have identified.

In some cases Bremer's regulations diverge from the Bush administration's
domestic policies. He suspended the death penalty, and his election law
imposes a strict quota: One of every three candidates on a party's slate
must be a woman.

Iraqis have already scoffed at some of the requirements. Judges on the
Central Criminal Court of Iraq, who were appointed by Bremer, have refused
to impose 30-year sentences on people detained with grenades and other
military weapons. At the same time, many Iraqi politicians contend that
banning the death penalty was a mistake. Several have said they will push to
reinstate capital punishment after the transfer of political authority.

Some of the Iraqis recently appointed by Bremer as inspectors and
commissioners said they should have been given their jobs months ago. Had
that happened, they insisted, they would have had more time to build support
for the activities.

"There are some doubts about my work," said Nabil Bayati, the inspector
general in the Ministry of Electricity, who is charged with rooting out
waste, fraud and abuse. People in the ministry, he said, "don't understand
it yet."

Siyamend Othman, the chief executive of the Iraqi Communications and Media
Commission, said his fellow commissioners were only appointed three weeks
ago. "Had this commissions been set up six months ago, we would have been in
a far more secure position than we are today," he said. "We would have had
six months to prove and to show to the Iraqi people our worth and what we're
capable of doing, and why this commission is such an important institution."

In recent weeks, Bremer has issued orders aimed at setting policy for a
variety of controversial issues, including the future use of radioactive
material, Arab-Kurd property disputes and national elections planned for
January.

On June 15, Bremer signed an order establishing the Iraqi Radioactive Source
Regulatory Authority as an independent agency regulating radioactive
material in Iraq. His order forbids, even after the transfer of sovereignty,
any activity involving radioactive material except under requirements
established by the agency.

On June 19, in an effort to keep unemployed Iraqi weapons scientists from
working for other nations, Bremer established the Iraqi Non-Proliferation
Programs Foundation, a semi-governmental organization set up to provide
grants and contracts to people who worked on Saddam Hussein's chemical,
biological and nuclear arms programs. An initial grant of &dol;37.5 million
was set aside by Bremer to pay the scientists' expenses to attend
international conferences so they can be retrained for non-weapons
employment.

The foundation, which has been exempted from a ban on government support to
former high-ranking members of Hussein's Baath Party, is also supposed to
establish a venture capital fund to promote the commercial development of
products and technologies by former employees of Iraqi weapons programs,
according to the order setting up the foundation.

On May 28, Bremer signed an order establishing a Special Task Force on
Compensating Victims of the Previous Regime. The task force, appointed by
Bremer, is to devise a means for determining the number of victims, estimate
fair compensation and recommend a system under which claims could be made
and adjudicated. An endowment of &dol;25 million was set aside from oil
income to be used to compensate victims and their families, according to the
order authorizing the task force.

But perhaps Bremer's most far-reaching and potentially contentious order is
the election law, which he signed June 15. The law states that no party can
be associated with a militia or get money from one. It also requires the
electoral commission to draft a code of conduct barring campaigners from
using "hate speech, intimidation, and support for, the practice of and the
use of terrorism."

The law, signed last week, is intended to establish the framework and
policies that will govern next year's national elections to select a
275-member national assembly. But experts in Arab world elections have
questioned how the law will be received by the Iraqi people once its terms
are widely known. Some predicted that the rules would be challenged and
perhaps ignored by the interim Iraqi government.

"I foresee real political conflict about these rules," said Amy Hawthorne,
an Arab specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who
studies elections.

"The laws came out from behind a curtain while armed conflict is going on,"
said Hawthorne, who expects people and parties to challenge the laws after
July 1 because "they were created under the [occupation] authority and their
legal status is a bit murky."

"The notion of [the U.S.] decreeing election law prior to June 30 is
unfortunate," said Leslie Campbell, who has worked in Iraq for the National
Democratic Institute.

Financing elections, difficult in the United States, could be an even
greater problem in Iraq where not only the wealthy but also foreign
countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and even the United States are openly
putting money into political parties and politicians. The Bremer law calls
on parties to "strive to the extent possible to achieve full transparency in
all financial dealings" and calls on the electoral commission to consider
issuing regulations.

Campbell said such a law "may be a lot cleaner than letting the commission
have it out with the interim government in a messy way, but it is not good
that the electoral commission is not promulgating key parts of the law."

Campbell said it would be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce the
provision separating militia members from politics since all the major Iraqi
political parties are associated with armed organizations. Although the
occupation authority has attempted to demobilize militias, most have not yet
disbanded.

Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who specializes in Iraq, said
the appointed electoral commission's power to eliminate political parties or
candidates for not obeying laws would allow it "to disqualify people someone
didn't like."

He likened the power of the commission to that of religious mullahs in Iran,
who routinely use their authority to remove candidates before an election.
"In a way, Mr. Bremer is using a more subtle form than the one used by
hard-liners in Iran to control their elections," Cole said.

Pincus reported from Washington.


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