Sovereignty for Iraq, a farce

THE EDITOR: The current Anglo-American Draft Security Council Resolution outlining the road map leading to an elected government in Iraq post-June 30 infringes and utterly vandalises the international legal concept of State sovereignty. The Resolution constitutes both an exit and a non-exit strategy. Firstly, sovereignty (Island of Palmas Case) means unfettered independence to be exercised over the sovereign territory of Iraq. It cannot be partial, conditional, limited or subject, against its will, to the military capability/threats of an illegal occupying competing outfit. According to PM Blair the exercise of sovereignty in Iraq post-June 30 must be “real and genuine” raising fears of a policy rift with Washington.

Secondly, the current Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) headed by Paul Bremer cannot transfer sovereignty via the UN to the July 1 interim Government that the CPA did not in fact and in law possess. The CPA was a Coalition-imposed, glorified administering body devoid of the international legitimacy conferred on duly recognised governments. International legal experts as well as UN Resolutions 1483 and 1511 recognise that even during the coalition occupation, sovereignty was vested in the State of Iraq.  The Coalition forces were never in total and effective control of the territory of Iraq since chaos, mayhem and Iraq resistance prevailed. On what grounds can this Draft UN Resolution purport to legitimise an illegal, non-UN sanctioned occupation or even pretend to be handing over sovereignty to an Interim government handpicked by UN Special Representative, Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi, former Algerian Foreign Minister?

In the face of the dialectics between sovereignty and continuing coalition occupation, the 150,000-occupying soldiers effective July 1 2004 will still be exclusively under American command constituting a military enclave within a politically and religiously divided Iraq. Other Security Council members sch as France, Germany, China, the Russian Federation have expressed their concerns by supporting the unconditional restoration of sovereignty to the Iraqis and the de facto end of occupation — a position supported by increasing majorities in USA and the UK. Surprisingly the Draft Resolution attempts also to confer UN legitimacy ex post facto to the current invasion that was premised exclusively on the presence in Iraq of devastating WMD’s, chemical and biological warfare all of which proved to an Ahmad Challabi-orchestrated hoax. Accordingly contrary to the first line of the Draft Resolution, Iraq never was and does not now constitute a viable threat to international peace and security.

Furthermore Iraq’s rudimentary conventional war machine as well as its invaluable cultural legacy and its social and economic infrastructure has been devastated beyond immediate repair and restoration. The Coalition is liable for reparation. How can sovereignty be effectively and fully exercised by the proposed Interim Government when the Draft recognises that the Coalition commanders would have de facto exclusive “authority to take all the necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq” and not be subject to any veto powers of the Interim Government.

Under the misleading and deceptive facade of sovereignty transfer, the Security Council is being requested to sanction and install a Coalition-selected, ad hoc, care-taker administrator arrangement that will be subject to the coercive threat of ruthless foreign occupying forces. How can the Resolution “welcome(s) the commitment of the occupying powers to end the occupation (of Iraq) by June 30 2004...” when 150,000 plus Anglo-American troops will remain until such time that the Americans under President George Bush decide it to be necessary to fight international terrorism in an Islamic theatre? This Draft Resolution lacks credibility.

STEPHEN KANGAL
Caroni