inside the glass house

So much for sovereignty
NEW YORK - When US soldiers are killed in action, the Pentagon extends the traditional courtesy of not revealing their names to the press until they first notify the "next of kin".

Perhaps the same rule should have applied to the new Iraqi interim government whose members are on a hit list of highly targeted Iraqis marked for assassination by insurgents.

The Bush administration, which manipulated the appointment of the interim government, should have been prudent enough to first notify the next of kin before revealing the names of the prime minister and his 36 ministers to the media.

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a one-time US agent in the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), has been described by insurgents as an "American collaborator." And so are his cabinet ministers.

Allawi is no better than the US-installed Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan: they are both American quislings. Judging by the rash of killings of senior Iraqi officials every other day, members of the new interim government should invest all their savings on heavy life insurance policies.

The insurgents are also getting more sophisticated: the head of the finance ministry's audit board was assassinated last week by a magnetic device hidden on the underside of his car.

The non-elected Allawi has already hinted that the proposed elections by January next year – a deadline laid down by a Security Council resolution last month – may have to be postponed because of the deteriorating security environment in Iraq.

The signals coming out of Baghdad are clear: Allawi will continue as unelected prime minister, long after the UN deadline, and with the blessings of the US, now a colonial administrator in Iraq.

For most Iraqis, the interim government is not a legitimate governing body because it was imposed on them by the Americans. Even UN Special Envoy Lakdhar Brahimi, who originally called for technocrats to run the country, was sidelined by the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) which had a final say in choosing the prime minister, the president and cabinet ministers.

Ambassador Paul Bremer, head of the CPA, "transferred power" to the Iraqis two days in advance of the scheduled June 30 deadline -- and bolted the country within hours of the low-keyed ceremony which was held in the heavily fortified, US-run Green Zone in Baghdad.

As one New York Times columnist pointed out, the Bush administration which had earlier hoped for a grand independence day parade in Baghdad replete with marching bands – in typical American tradition – opted to cut and literally run, as evidenced by Bremer's hasty retreat.

Although the Bush administration trumpeted the "transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people', the whole exercise has been described as a monumental fraud and a sham.

The US will keep at least 138,000 troops in Iraq (augmented by about 20,000 from other countries) for the foreseeable future. Additionally, 14 permanent or semi-permanent military bases have been and are being constructed to house them.

And by a series of new edicts just before his departure from Iraq, Bremer ensured that the coalition forces will have complete immunity from Iraqi law and Iraqi courts. The role of the new interim government in Baghdad has been reduced to "advice" and "consultation."

Allawi's government will not have the power or the authority to change the interim constitution or even amend the Transitional Administrative Law. An edict signed by Bremer also gives US and Western defense contractors complete immunity from Iraqi law.

Additionally, Bremer created and appointed an electoral commission that can ban political parties; gave five-year terms to the new hand-picked national security adviser and national intelligence chief; and appointed inspectors-general with five year terms over every one of the 26 Iraqi government ministries.

And still the Bush administration has the temerity to describe Iraq as "a sovereign nation". At worst, it is an insult to the intelligence of the American public. Dilip Hiro, a longstanding Middle East expert based in London, says about two-thirds of the 36-member interim government carry foreign passports, chiefly British and American.

Of the remaining 12 who have only Iraqi passports, half are women. "Remarkably, most of the former exiles of the (now-defunct) US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) didn't even bring their families back to Iraq," said Hiro, author of 'Iraq: In the Eye of the Storm.'

He also pointed out that a former IGC member, Adnan Pachachi, returned to his base in Abu Dhabi within days of his failure to secure the post of president of Iraq in early June.

This shows just how skin deep their attachment to Iraq is, and how little faith they have in its future as a US-dominated "stable, democratic state," he said. Last week, King Abdullah of Jordan -- a country that has remained a traditional surrogate of the US in the Middle East since the days of the late King Hussein -- was the first to break ranks with the Arab world by pledging to send troops to Iraq, if requested by the interim government.

Abdullah, who currently receives over $200 million in outright US military aid, knows well where his loyalties are -- even to the extent of blinding his political vision of neighbouring Iraq.

Back to Columns