Archives for June 2004

From Baghdad:

The U.S.-led coalition transferred sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government Monday, speeding up the move by two days in an apparent bid to surprise insurgents who may have tried to sabotage the step toward self rule.

Legal documents handing over sovereignty were handed over by U.S. governor L. Paul Bremer to interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi in a small ceremony attended by about a half dozen Iraqi and coalition officials in the heavily guarded Green Zone.

“This is a historical day,” Allawi said during the ceremony. “We feel we are capable of controlling the security situation.”

Bremer will leave Iraq sometime Monday, coalition officials said on condition of anonymity.

Although the interim government will have full sovereignty, it will operate under major restrictions — some of them imposed at the urging of the influential Shiite clergy which sought to limit the powers of an un-elected administration.

The new government’s major tasks will be to prepare for elections by Jan. 31, handle the day to day running of the country and work along with the U.S.-led multinational force, which is responsible for security. The Iraqis can in principle ask the foreign troops to leave — although it is unlikely this will happen.

However, the United States and its partners hope that the transfer of sovereignty will serve as a psychological boost for Iraqis, who have been increasingly frustrated by and hostile to foreign military occupation. U.S. officials hope that Iraqis will believe that they are now in control of their country and that will take the steam out of the insurgency.

Good luck.

I fully expect Democrats to state the early transfer is a symbol of failure somehow.

*** Update ***

Oliver delivers:

So, its pretty obvious that we’re in total control in Iraq. So much so that we have to do the handover in secret, two days before its scheduled, transferring not much power to Iraq’s new unelected leadership.

That means our soliders can come home, and everything’s hunky-dory, right?

MORE: Can anyone say “get out of Dodge“?

Is it so hard to understand that Bremer had to leave so that Iraqi’s would truly believe they were in control?

*** Update #2 ***

No one can eclipse the breathless hysteria of Ezra (he should have read his partner’s much more reasonable post). He did everything but mention the ‘Brutal Afhan Winter’ and throw in a ‘quagmire’ or two:

If you needed convincing that the situation has deteriorated and the Iraqis are far from prepared to assume sovereignty, you need look no further, the Bush Administration proved it today.

The political calculus here was a simple one. The June 30th transfer would symbolize success; make it a ceremonial event fitting of a historic occasion and the political rewards would be enormous. At the very least there’d be a significant uptick in support for the war and satisfaction with the outcome; sham or not, a milestone would have been reached. The downside of this plan was its importance, were insurgents to substantially interrupt or wreck the proceedings, it’d be further evidence of our weakness and exponentially more damaging due to the event’s significance.

But even I didn’t expect this. Not only did the Bush Administration sacrifice the political benefit of the transfer, they did themselves harm. Pushing it up two days and conducting it in a tiny room with few watching leaves the media with no relevant spin save “they were afraid of insurgent attacks”. Stunningly, they essentially admitted that they can’t protect the country and they’ve no control over the events.

If any attacks come in the future, or on the 30th, they will be on the sovereign state of Iraq, and not the CPA. Why don;t people understand why this is so important? This was a brilliant move, and it also signalled that not only is the Interim Government ready, but it was ready early to take the reins.

A couple of weeks ago on the anniversary of D-Day, MSNBC ran a program trying to guess what media coverage of D-Day would be like in the modern era. They then put on a 1 hour show, in the modern sense, pretending to have reporters at OMaha Beach, Paris, London, England, Mosocow, etc. It was pretty entertaining, but all I could think was “This isn’t what it would be like at all. If today’s press reported the actual events of D-Day, our liberals and Democrats would be suing Germany for peace on June 7th. I would be sitting here in lederhosen eating cold wurst as we speak.

The shrillness, the ngeativity, the willingness to distort reality into negative spin is just beyond me.

And Ezra- there are goingto be more terrorist attacks. More soldiers are going to die. More Iraqi’s are going to die. It will be a shame, but it will not be the end. And the ceremony you so desparately need- that can come on June 28th, 2005, on the first Anniversary of Iraqi Independence. As if you would have welcomed a ceremony on Wednesday anyway- you would have called it a fraud and a charade and a PR stunt, and found some other way to piss all over everybody who doesn’t share your jaded worldview.

The Sovereign State of IraqPost + Comments (71)