Now the old Common Law Rules applies to US Troops "The King Law follows the King's Troop" i.e. any US Solider, Sailor, Marine or Airman (when I use the term US Troops I mean ALL Soldiers, Sailors, Marines or Airmen) is subject to US law, which in the case of such US Troops is the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
On the other hand that rule does NOT preclude such US Troops also being subject to the laws of the country their are in. Thus a US Trooper can be charged by the US military AND the host country (Similarly a US Trooper who commits a crime in the US can be tried by the US Military AND the State where the crime took place).
The only exception to this dual jurisdiction rule is when the host country and the US sign a treaty that includes a provision that excludes prosecution of US Troops for crimes they commit in the host country. Such a treaty term was included in the treaty between the US and Iraq AFTER Saddam was removed from office. This was one of the treaties the US signed for itself and Bremmer signed for Iraq. The US position was it was enforced even through NOT ratified by the Iraqi Parliament (the Parliament said it would ratify it and several other treaties, but never did for the Iraqi Government opposed those treaties but rather then say no, they undermined them by refusing to ratify them).
Side note: Under International Law any treaty or law passed when a country is under occupation is invalid UNLESS RATIFIED BY THE SUBSEQUENT GOVERNMENT OF THAT COUNTRY WHEN IT IS NO LONGER OCCUPIED. Bremmer had signed the treaty permitting continued US Occupation, but the Iraqi Parliament NEVER ratified it and once the US troops were gone it NEVER came up for a vote.
The US ALWAYS insists on teams that gives its exclusive jurisdiction over its troops in such treaties. The US wants to have EXCLUSIVE jurisdiction over its soldiers. This has been a bone of contention for years in Japan (where do to domestic politics of Japan, Japan insisted on the grounds that SOME crimes committed by US Troops, a term I am using to include ALL Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors) be triable in their courts. The US wanted those Japanese Bases and agreed to those terms for without those terms Japan was NOT going to renew the US use of those bases.
Thus the inability of Iraq to prosecute these soldier is exclusively the product of treaty, a treaty the Iraqis REFUSED to renew when it came up for renewal. The US insists that the treaty signed by Bremmer covers this soldier, even through it was NOT ratified by the Iraqi Government as required by the US Imposed Iraqi Constitution.
That refusal was the chief reason the US pulled out its armed forces. Please note the proposed rule in Iraq (and the one agreed to by Bremmer) included US contractors thus the argument that it was to protect such contractors from Iraq Law was the reason for the breakdown. That appears to have some truth in it, for Iraq appears to have been agreeable to a ban on jurisdiction as to crimes done by US Troops but wanted to restrict that definition to actual US troops not civilian contractors.
Side note: The above ONLY applies to actual crimes NOT a product of military operations. Thus it is a defence even in an Iraqi trial that the "crime" was NOT a "crime" for it was a legal part of an military operation where civilians are sometime killed. Thus the fight is NOT over legitimate military operations but what are crimes even under such conditions.
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