Illegal orders give the U.S. a lock on Iraq’s economy.

[images and
captions added by this website]

August … 2004 [date of original publication not certain]

The Hand-Over
That Wasn’t

Illegal orders give the
U.S. a lock on Iraq’s economy.

By Antonia
Juhasz

Officially, the U.S. occupation of Iraq ended on June 28, 2004. But in reality, the
United States is still in charge: Not only do
138,000
[Website note: now, Nov 2004, over
150,000] troops remain to control the streets, but the “100 Orders” of
L. Paul Bremer III remain to control the economy.

L.
Paul Bremer III. far left, with his “civilian contractor” guards
(Blackwater Inc. received $25m for protecting
Bremer in Iraq).

These little noticed orders enacted by Bremer, the now-departed head of the now-defunct Coalition
Provisional Authority, go to the heart of Bush administration plans in Iraq. They lock sweeping advantages to American firms, ensuring long-term economic advantage while guaranteeing few, if any, benefits to the Iraqi people.

The Bremer orders control every aspect of Iraqi life from the use of car horns to the privatization of state-owned enterprises. Order No. 39 alone does no less than “transition [Iraq] from a
. . . centrally planned economy to a market economy” virtually overnight and by U.S. fiat.

[Iyad Allawi]Although many thought that the “end” of the occupation would also mean the end of the orders on his last day in
Iraq, Bremer simply transferred authority for the orders to Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, right, a 30-year exile with close ties to the CIA and
British intelligence.

Further the interim
constitution Iraq, written by the U.S.-appointed
Iraqi Governing Council solidifies the orders by
making them virtually impossible to
overturn..

A sampling of the most important orders demonstrates the economic imprint left by the Bush administration: Order No. 39 allows for:

1. privatization of Iraq’s 200 state-owned
   enterprises;
2. 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi
   businesses;
3. “national treatment” — which means no
   preferences for local over foreign
   businesses;
4. unrestricted, tax-free remittance of all
   profits and other funds; and
5. 40-year ownership licenses.

Thus, it forbids Iraqis from receiving preference in the reconstruction while allowing foreign corporations — Halliburton and Bechtel, for example to buy up Iraqi businesses, do all of the work and send all of their money home. They cannot be required to hire Iraqis or to reinvest their money in the Iraqi economy. They can take out their investments at any time and in any amount.

• Orders No. 57 and No. 77 ensure the
  implementation of the orders by placing
  US.-appointed auditors and inspector generals in
  every government ministry, with five-year terms
  and with sweeping authority over contracts,
  programs, employees and regulations.
• Order No. 17 grants foreign contractors,
  including private security firms, full immunity
  from Iraq’s laws.

  Even if they, say, kill
  someone or cause an environmental disaster, the
  injured party cannot turn to the Iraqi legal
  system. Rather, the charges must be brought to
  U.S. courts.

• Order No. 40 allows foreign banks to
  purchase up to 50% of Iraqi banks.
• Order No. 49 drops the tax rate on
  corporations from a high of 40% to a flat 15%.
  The income tax rate is also capped at 15%.
• Order No. 12 (renewed

  on Feb. 24) suspends
  “all tariffs, customs duties, import taxes,
  licensing fees and similar surcharges for goods
  entering or leaving Iraq.” This led to an
  im-mediate and dramatic inflow of cheap foreign
  consumer products — devastating local producers
  and sellers who were thoroughly unprepared to
  meet the challenge of their mammoth global
  competitors.

Clearly, the Bremer orders fundamentally altered
Iraq’s existing laws. For this reason, they are also illegal. Transformation of an occupied country’s laws violates the Hague regulations of
1907 (ratified by the United States) and the U.S.
Army’s Law of Land Warfare.

Indeed, in a leaked memo, the British attorney general, Lord
Goldsmith, warned Prime Minister Tony
Blair that “major structural economic reforms would not be authorized by international law.”

With few reconstruction projects underway and with Bremer’s rules favoring U.S. corporations, there has been little opportunity for Iraqis to go back to work, leaving nearly 2 million unemployed 1
‘/2 years after the invasion and, many believe. greatly fueling the resistance.

The Bremer orders are immoral and illegal and must be repealed to allow Iraqis to govern their own economic and political future.

Antonia Juhasz is a project director
at the International Forum on Globalization in
San Francisco and a Foreign Policy in Focus
scholar.

David
Irving: A
Radical’s Diary – on The Destruction of Falluja;
Blair, Bush, and their Iraqi Quisling, Iyad
Allawi