Legal loophole is leaving Iraqi police powerless(basically all foreigners have immunity)

[maddezmom]

Baghdad’s green zone rightly has the reputation as the most secure area in a city best known for its violence and lawlessness.

But the relative security comes at a cost. Ever since the green zone was created in the aftermath of the US-led invasion five years ago, to protect the American and British embassies and their officials, the area has existed in a legal limbo.

America supposedly handed sovereignty back to the Iraqis in June 2004 with the disbandment of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which ran Iraq for the first year after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But the handover was deceptive. The 130,000 US troops and other coalition forces are exempt from Iraqi law and answer only to their own governments.

Similarly, the hundreds of Western officials in Iraq invariably enjoy diplomatic status and immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law. And, most controversially, the contractors working for the US and British governments also enjoy immunity under a provision passed in the final days of the CPA’s rule.

The issue has caused huge resentment in Iraq and came to a head last summer when private security guards working for the American company Blackwater, and contracted to the US State Department, opened fire on a Baghdad street killing 17 Iraqi civilians. Nearly a year later none of the men has been prosecuted.



more:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3890131.ece

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Why yes, that was one of the first laws forced on Iraq. All foreign 'contractors' are immune.

[slipslidingaway]

2. Ayatollah Khomeini's 1964 Speech Condemning U.S. Immunity

Quote below is from page 5...

http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/articles/wpj02-2/Zahrani.pdf

"...In October 1964, responding to what he
perceived as a capitulation of national sovereignty,
Ayatollah Khomeini denounced the
adoption by the Majlis of a Status of Forces
Agreement, under which U.S. personnel received
certain legal immunities. His statement
appealed to many Iranians, especially
university students, and the government responded
by arresting and then sending the
ayatollah into exile, first in Turkey and later
Iraq, where he remained until 1978..."


In the book "The Eagle and the Lion" James Bill had this to say.

"Few political observers or scholars of Iran then understood the long term significance of what was happening. One notable exception was T. Cuyler Young of Princeton University who witnessed first-hand in Iran the explosive anti-Americanism that rose in reaction to the SOFA."

"Young's views were brushed aside by the American foreign policy establishment, and the Council on Foreign Relations chose not to publish his excellent manuscript of Iran..."



Ayatollah Khomeini's 1964 Speech Condemning U.S. Immunity

http://www.underthesamesun.org/content/2004/06/ayatollah_khome.html

June 24, 2004

"...As I just posted, Bremer's last act is expected to be bestowing of blanket immunity to U.S. troops and perhaps contractors. "History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce," goes an oft-quoted phrase from Marx. I fail to detect the farce yet but repetition there is a lot of.

So, here's a trip down memory lane with excerpts from Ayatollah Rohollah Khomeini's key speech in 1964 condemning a similarly blanket immunity deal the U.S. struck with the Shah of Iran. The very, very popular speech led to Khomeini's exile in Najaf -- marked a turning point in his rise:


...All American military advisers, together with their families, technical and administrative officials, and servants - in short, anyone in any way connected to them - are to enjoy legal immunity with respect to any crime they may commit in Iran! If some American's servant, some American's cook, assassinates your marja'-i taqlid in the middle of the bazaar, or runs over him, the Iranian police do not have the right to apprehend him! Iranian courts do not have the right to judge him! The dossier must be sent to America so that our masters there can decide what is to be done!...

[slipslidingaway]

3. Kick, I think the history is important. n/t