War Glance
Private security contractors operating in Iraq could face Iraqi prosecution for acts committed when they supposedly had immunity from Iraqi law, U.S. officials said Thursday.
A new U.S.-Iraq security agreement doesn't specifically prevent Iraqi officials from bringing criminal charges retroactively in cases such as the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians by contractors protecting a State Department convoy, officials told security company officials during meetings in Washington Thursday.
Contractors in Iraq could face charges in earlier incidents
Why the U.S. blinked on its troop agreement with Iraq
Although the Pentagon officially has welcomed the new accord on a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, senior military officials are privately criticizing President Bush for giving Iraq more control over U.S. military operations for the next three years than the U.S. had ever contemplated.
This official, and others, all who spoke anonymously to be candid, offered a first glimpse into the dynamics of the secret negotiations, which gave Iraq almost unprecedented control over U.S. troops in the period between Jan. 1 and a final U.S. withdrawal from Iraq on Dec. 31, 2011.
US-Iraq security pact may be in violation, Congress is told
Passage of the US-Iraq security pact under the terms both countries' leaders have advocated could violate the constitutions of both countries, specialists told a congressional subcommittee yesterday.
American constitutional law scholar Oona Hathaway said she believes the Constitution requires Congress to also approve the agreement. The Bush administration has labeled the pact a "status of forces agreement," which can be implemented without congressional approval.
Iraq Quietly Dismisses Its Anticorruption Officials
The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is systematically dismissing Iraqi oversight officials, who were installed to fight corruption in Iraqi ministries by order of the American occupation administration, which had hoped to bring Western standards of accountability to the notoriously opaque and graft-ridden bureaucracy here.
The dismissals, which were confirmed by senior Iraqi and American government officials on Sunday and Monday, came as estimates of official Iraqi corruption soared.
Mask Ban Upsets Iraqis Hired as U.S. Interpreters
The U.S. military has barred Iraqi interpreters working with American troops in Baghdad from wearing ski masks to disguise themselves, prompting some to resign and others to bare their faces even though they fear it could get them killed.
Iraq war set to end not on Bush's terms
President George W. Bush appears to have had to back down from his long-held opposition to an unconditional troop withdrawal from Iraq, with a timetable which Barack Obama will likely speed up.
As the Iraqi parliament Monday began debating a US-Iraq military deal approved Sunday by the Iraqi cabinet, the White House sought to put a positive spin on the pact and the pace of a US withdrawal.
Top judge: US and UK acted as 'vigilantes' in Iraq invasion
One of Britain's most authoritative judicial figures last night delivered a blistering attack on the invasion of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international law, and accusing Britain and the US of acting like a "world vigilante".
Contradicting head-on Lord Goldsmith's advice that the invasion was lawful, Bingham stated: "It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had." Adding his weight to the body of international legal opinion opposed to the invasion, Bingham said that to argue, as the British government had done, that Britain and the US could unilaterally decide that Iraq had broken UN resolutions "passes belief".
TVNL Comment: It was more like selective vigilantism used as an excuse to proceed with business plans.
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