the first, White House Considers Plan to Let Iraqi Forces Opt Out of Military Operations Ordered by the U.S., explains:
The Bush administration, responding to concerns at the United Nations about the limitations on Iraq's future sovereignty, is leaning toward a plan to allow Iraqi security forces to decline to take part in military operations ordered by American commanders, administration officials say.
Some administration officials say this so-called "opt out" arrangement will help win support at the Security Council for a resolution conferring legitimacy on the caretaker government to be installed in Iraq after June 30.
note that this proposal assumes that u.s. military forces will continue to operate freely in iraqi territory after june 30, 2004, and even conduct military operations over the iraqi government's objections. under this proposal, the iraqis will not be able to stop such operations, but instead would be allowed to "opt out;" no iraqis will take part, but the operation will still go on, regardless of what the iraqi leaders say. the u.s. military, not the iraqis decide whether the operation takes place.
this is not sovereignty. i just looked it up. of the four definitions listed at dictionary.com, two are relevant to this sense of the term: "Complete independence and self-government" and "Supremacy of authority or rule as exercised by a sovereign or sovereign state."* having foreign forces running around your country outside the government's control is not "complete independence and self-government." nor it is "supremacy of authority" when there are armed forces that are beyond the leader's authority. unless the iraqis have veto power over any military action within the country's borders, there is simply no sovereignty. on july 1st iraq will still be a client state of the u.s., only with a new and misleading label.
the second times article U.S. Advisers to Stay in Iraq After June 30 is further evidence that this whole thing is a sham. if there was real sovereignty, the only ones who could decide if american advisors would stay would be the new iraqi government. but no one even knows who will be the alleged leader of iraq after june 30th, so how exactly can anyone say at this point whether the advisors will stay or go?
About 200 American and international advisers will continue to work at 26 Iraqi ministries as consultants after the June 30 transfer of authority to Iraq, Bush administration planners said Wednesday.
"We want the Iraqis to understand that we are not abandoning them," said Ambassador Francis J. Ricciardone, who is managing the transition for the State Department. He spoke at a briefing sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace.(emphasis added)
the bush administration made the decision and announced it with no fear that it will be reversed by any new sovereign government this summer. if the new government would have any real authority, they could tell the advisors to leave on the morning of july 1st. the fact that the bush adminstration knows that will not happen suggests that the new government will not have the authority to ask them to go. (and why does he think iraqis are worried that we will abandon them? some iraqis, at least seem to be saying the opposite)
i've posted about this before, but i can't get over just how uncritically the press is parroting the administration's "sovereignty" line. the only real question is not whether this "sovereignty" will be real, it clearly won't, but rather whether the new iraqi government will have any real authority at all.
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*the other 2 definitions are: "Royal rank, authority, or power" which refers to an individual (e.g. "the sovereign" when referring to a king) and "A territory existing as an independent state" which is the sense of the word "sovereign" which is synonymous with the word "country."
