Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Bremer Still Writing Laws For Iraq

Juan Cole 05/10/2004

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

Bremer Still Writing Laws for Iraq

Walter Pincus of the Washington Post reports that US proconsul in Iraq Paul Bremer has unilaterally issued more laws, this time attempting to limit the scope of operation of the new Iraqi intelligence agency (it isn’t to spy on legitimate Iraqi parties), and to place time limits on former intelligence and military officers requiring that they wait eighteen months before taking up a political post. Actually it keeps being assumed by US observers that Saddam’s government was military. It wasn’t. He never served in the military, and came from the civilian wing of the Baath Party. He always distrusted the military and had it intensively spied on. So these restrictions may be salutary, but they do not address the Baath Party, which was civlian in nature and leadership. As Pincus’s interviewees point out, it is highly unlikely that Bremer’s laws will survive his departure from the country for very long.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Uncategorized

Bremer Still Writing Laws For Iraq

Juan Cole 05/10/2004

Bremer Still Writing Laws for Iraq

Walter Pincus of the Washington Post reports that US proconsul in Iraq Paul Bremer has unilaterally issued more laws, this time attempting to limit the scope of operation of the new Iraqi intelligence agency (it isn’t to spy on legitimate Iraqi parties), and to place time limits on former intelligence and military officers requiring that they wait eighteen months before taking up a political post. Actually it keeps being assumed by US observers that Saddam’s government was military. It wasn’t. He never served in the military, and came from the civilian wing of the Baath Party. He always distrusted the military and had it intensively spied on. So these restrictions may be salutary, but they do not address the Baath Party, which was civlian in nature and leadership. As Pincus’s interviewees point out, it is highly unlikely that Bremer’s laws will survive his departure from the country for very long.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....