| Troops to keep immunity
ROBIN WRIGHT; The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has decided to take the unusual
step of bestowing on its own troops and personnel immunity from
prosecution by Iraqi courts for killing Iraqis or destroying local
property after the occupation ends and sovereignty returns to Iraq, U.S.
officials said.
The administration plans to accomplish that step - which would bypass
the most contentious remaining issue before the transfer of power - by
extending an order that has been in place during the year-long occupation
of Iraq. Order 17 gives all foreign personnel in the U.S.-led Coalition
Provisional Authority immunity from "local criminal, civil and
administrative jurisdiction and from any form of arrest or detention other
than by persons acting on behalf of their parent states."
U.S. governor L. Paul Bremer is expected to extend Order 17 as one of
his last acts before shutting down the occupation next week, U.S.
officials said. The order is expected to be kept in place for an
additional six or seven months, until the first national elections are
held.
The United States would draw legal authority from both Iraq's
Transitional Administrative Law and the recent U.N. resolution recognizing
the new government and approving a multinational force. But some U.S.
officials and countries in the multinational force still want greater
reassurances on immunity, U.S. officials said.
Bush's top foreign policy advisers, including Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser
Condoleezza Rice, are still debating the scope of immunity to be granted.
"The debate is on the extent or parameters of coverage - should it be
sweeping, as it is now, or more limited," said a senior U.S. official
familiar with discussions, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity
of the issue.
In Baghdad, U.S. officials have been engaged all week with interim
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and National Security Adviser Mowaffak Rubaie.
Both sides hope to finalize the terms before Bush leaves for the NATO
summit in Istanbul at week's end, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
The administration is taking the step in an effort to prevent the new
Iraqi government from having to grant a blanket waiver as one of its first
acts, which could undermine its credibility just as it assumes power. But
U.S. officials said Washington's act could also create the impression that
the United States is not turning over full sovereignty - and giving itself
special privileges.
The administration's move comes at a time when issues of immunity are
particularly sensitive, in light of the scandal over the abuse of U.S.
detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wednesday at the United Nations, the
administration, citing opposition on the Security Council, withdrew a
resolution that would have extended immunity for U.S. personnel in
U.N.-approved peacekeeping missions from prosecution before the
International Criminal Court.
In Iraq, U.S. officials are already concerned about the potential
fallout after June 30 among key players, from Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Husseini al-Sistani, Iraq's most powerful religious cleric, to militant
insurgents. But the Bush foreign policy team concluded that there are few
alternatives until elections select a government that will be powerful
enough to negotiate a formal treaty, U.S. officials said.
The issue of immunity for U.S. troops is among the most contentious in
the Islamic world, where it has galvanized public opinion against the
United States in the past. A similar grant of immunity to U.S. troops in
Iran during the Johnson administration in the 1960s led to the rise of
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who used the issue to charge that the shah
had sold out the Iranian people.
"Our dignity has been trampled underfoot; the dignity of Iran has been
destroyed," Khomeini said in a still-famous 1964 speech that led to his
detention and then expulsion from Iran. The measure "reduced the Iranian
people to a level lower than that of an American dog."
Khomeini then went into exile in Iraq, where he spent 12 years in Najaf
- the Shi'ite holy city that is now home to al-Sistani and his followers
and where Iraqis still remember the flap that led the shah to deport the
cleric who later went on to lead Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.
In Iraq, Washington had originally hoped to achieve a formal Status of
Forces Agreement to grant immunity, but that was effectively vetoed when
Sistani and other Iraqi politicians said no unelected Iraqi government
could enter into a treaty with other countries. The United States now
hopes to negotiate a formal agreement next year, after a new government is
elected.
In the current negotiations over Order 17, a senior Iraqi official
said, the basic concept is to cover "soldiers and foreign nationals
working in operations conducted by mutual consent or understanding with
the Iraqi interim government and the command of the multinational force.
But what that means remains to be seen."
The United States hopes to include some
foreign contractors, many of whom are engaged in security operations, the
Iraqi official added, while Iraq is pressing to retain
the rights of sovereignty. "It's going to be a political hot potato, and
we're worried it'll be used as a hot potato in a way that is not good for
either the interim government or the multinational force," he said.
As a legal basis, Iraq's Transition Administrative Law, which was
worked out between Bremer and the now-disbanded Iraqi Governing Council,
might be considered too weak a foundation for granting immunity.
Al-Sistani argued against it because it was not the work of elected
officials.
The U.N. resolution also has no direct reference to immunity for
foreign troops. The only reference is in a letter from Powell to the
Security Council attached to the resolution, which says contributing
states in the multinational force must "have responsibility for exercising
jurisdiction over their personnel" but does not mention prosecution or any
other specific activity.
(Published 12:01AM, June 24th,
2004)
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| 
The News Tribune - Tacoma, WA
