Iraq transfer to be low-key

[peterh]

http://washingtontimes.com/world/20040622-122336-1939r.htm

BAGHDAD — U.S. authorities say they are taking a back seat in planning for next week's transfer of authority to a sovereign Iraqi government, details of which still are being closely guarded.

What had once been anticipated as a major event now appears set to pass with minimal ceremony, both for security reasons and because the interim government named early this month already has assumed most of its functions.

The event will be so understated that the first U.S. ambassador to Iraq in more than a decade will not attend. John D. Negroponte, most recently Washington's envoy to the United Nations, will not arrive at his new posting until at least July 2, Coalition Provisional Authority officials said.

"It's part security, part protocol," said one U.S. official, who declined to say when the career diplomat would arrive. U.S. officials have ruled out Mr. Negroponte's participation on the day of the transfer, pointing out that he is to be U.S. ambassador to a sovereign Iraq.





Truly…what’s the big deal about the so-called transfer to a puppet government….the real transfer occurs on July 2nd….from Bremer to Negroponte….outside of that, it’s a non-event….aside from the occasional stray RPG…..

[teryang]

1. It's all security and no protocol

The Americans cannot come out of their bunkers. Yet newspaper headlines make it sound like the war is over.

This so called transfer of sovereignty is a PR event and nothing more. The spinners can't make up their mind is this a war for democracy or does Iraq need a new (American backed) strongman?

Here's the real American agenda:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FF18Ak01.html

<...the primacy of the economic policy is something that I don't think is generally recognized. One of the reasons for getting rid of the Ba'ath army, according to Garner, was that they were afraid that the survival of any large Ba'ath institution like that might be an obstacle to the extreme liberalization of the economy. You can just imagine a situation in which the Americans wanted to denationalize Iraqi companies. If you had kept the Ba'ath army, they would come to the coalition and say, "No, you can't sell off these companies, my cousin helps to run them"... They thought that the army would remain a power center able to intervene in policy debates, on the side of state control of the economy. So they dissolved it not based on security purposes, but to remove a potential obstacle to Polish-style shock therapy. They brought Polish economic advisers - that's the reason for the Polish military involvement in Iraq. They tried to replicate the Polish experience.>

[Disturbed]

2. The real deal

The US never planned on actual democracy in Iraq because they didn't want a Muslim leaning anti-US Govt in Iraq, hence a Puppet Govt. The interim Governing people, if they are still alive in Jan. '05 will be the people up for election. The ones that don't make it will be replaced by other US pupppets.



Full Sovereignty?
"Throughout the spring, as hundreds died in the spiraling conflict, as Regime bosses applied their hardcore "anti-terrorist" tortures to innocent bystanders raked up in their occupation nets, as Regime mouthpieces prated endlessly of "liberation" and "sovereignty," Bush viceroy Paul Bremer was quietly signing a series of edicts that will give the United States effective control over the military, ministries -- and money -- of any Iraqi government, for years to come, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Bremer has placed U.S.-appointed "commissions" made up of Americans and local puppets throughout Iraqi government agencies; the ministers supposedly in charge weren't even told of the edicts. These boards "will serve multiyear terms and have significant authority to run criminal investigations, award contracts, direct troops and subpoena citizens," the Journal reports. Any new Iraqi government "will have little control over its armed forces, lack the ability to make or change laws and be unable to make major decisions within specific ministries without tacit U.S. approval, say U.S. officials.


Earlier Bremer edicts laid the Iraqi economy wide open to ruthless exploitation by Bush-approved foreign "investors"; dominance of such key sectors as banking, communications -- and energy -- is already well advanced. The latest dictates aim to ensure that this organized looting goes on, no matter what kind of makeshift "interim government" the United Nations manage to piece together. Bush's plans to build a Saddamite fortress embassy in Baghdad and 14 permanent military bases around the country are designed to provide the knee-breaking "security" for these lucrative arrangements."


http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/05/21/120.html