NYT: Iraq to Offer Amnesty; No Killers Need Apply

[gristy]

By IAN FISHER and SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: August 4, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 3 - A delayed plan to offer amnesty to Iraqi insurgents moved forward on Tuesday, but objections raised by American officials and Iraqi communal leaders have reduced the amnesty's scope, meaning that those who killed either Americans or Iraqis will not qualify.

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh announced that the plan, floated a month ago by the new government, would be passed by the new cabinet in a few days. The final amnesty, he said, will extend only to people who indirectly assisted the insurgency "in the killing," and not, he suggested, to the killers themselves.
<snip>

At the same time, the new American ambassador, John D. Negroponte, insisted that insurgents who killed Americans should not be pardoned under any circumstance. Then, in turn, many Iraqi leaders said those who killed Iraqis should not fall under the amnesty program either.

Who was left to pardon? Apparently people in the ill-defined category of those who assisted the resistance but were not considered to have committed any crime. Many Iraqis feared that the amnesty would include garden-variety street criminals, the group they consider a more immediate threat than insurgents.

MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/international/middleeast/04amne.html?hp

[Sagan]

1. Gosh, this is easy to dissect...

So Negroponte and ChimpCo will talk tough about "no killers being pardoned" while secretly telling the Iraqi puppet junta that they can pardon anyone they feel will help the insurgency go away.

Am I getting more cynical or is ChimpCo getting more transparent?

[gristy]

2. The question is, who decides what kind of criminal or insurgent is

in custody? A judge? A jury of ones peers? Will the accused have access to a lawyer? Given the hell in handbasket that is Iraq, I doubt it...

So who decides???

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Well, that eliminates Allawi

doesn't it?

[wtmusic]

4. Do Americans who killed Iraqis qualify?

Junior wants to know.