The Americans: Khalid Issa Taha's view

Proposed Iraq-US.treaty should be cooked in slow fire

According to administration and military officials; The Bush administration is asking The Iraqi Government for a broad authority to carry out war operations and guarantee national contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law.

The mentioned proposal should be dealt in a very diplomatic and intellectual way by the Iraq's foreign affairs minister and they should be patient to see the forthcoming hidden problems as I believe there are many.

Iraqi people might give the impression that they are prepared to accept any treaty coming from USA as they are the occupier but I would like to remind you the unpopular Anglo-Iraqi Portsmouth Treaty upheaval of early 1948.
Iraqi people struggled to demolish the treaty which was proposed by the Great Britain. During that time, Baghdad was full of protests against the treaty.
In connection with three main newspapers The Iraqi enlightened people and intellectuals were trying so hard to let people know what was going on behind the closed doors with their writings and articles so that they managed to get a reaction from community. That was resulted that the treaty was not signed as proposed and this was done by Iraqi people’s protest.
These three newspapers were El-Alhali that represented the Democratic Party in Iraq, El-Esteklal that represented Nationalist Party and Al-Qaidie that represented the Communist Party.

The sweltering Iraq was being run by late Salih Jabr who was resented by nationalists for his support of the British during the Rashid Ali uprising and for sending hundreds of people to prisons and detention camps when he became minister of the interior after the uprising.

TODAY UNFORTUNATELY Iraq is occupied by American and this Iraq knows how vulgar this occupation has been since March 2003. Even the gun machines and the bullets are the same as 1948. Americans shot Iraqis in person and they did and will kill thousands of Iraqi people. Comparing the time of these two we will see the American Embassy today is more influential than the British Embassy in 1948.

One advise could be given to all Iraqi patriots regardless their background to be united as one heart with full of courage to stand against any decision will be taken hastily. I strongly believe the following points should be considered in order to make people to re-think and make a decision on what to do about this treaty and to know what it is not in their favour.

Initially, we have to make conferences, write articles and publish every detail about this treaty, which America wants Iraq to sign. I believe Lawyers Without Borders could successfully participate in this due to large scale of background on legal matters. What people know little about this treaty are horrible things to any country who wants to sign a treaty.

America is willing to build hundreds of military bases, America will not let Iraqi court to deal with any crime relating to their owned soldiers and last but not least they will have their right to ask any other country to send their army and join to stay in Iraq and that for sure will irritate many neighbours. Beside these major points many other points are still in secret. Iraqi people have the right to study the whole treaty and discuss it freely and openly. The advice to both the Iraqi government and the American government is that if they want to sign such treaty, they should sign it amicably without implementing any force or army. Otherwise, they could not secure a long time to stay peacefully in Iraq and it wouldn’t be called a treaty but something else.

I am happy to know that Bush’s administration has withdrawn to push and rush the Iraqi Government for signing the treaty. I was asked the question in one of my interviews that if I would prefer Iraq would stay under chapter 7 of UN or sign this treaty and my answer was I’d rather stay under chapter 7 of UN.

In Iraq we are facing growing opposition to a proposed security agreement that would set out how long American forces and military bases stayed in Iraq but my concern is that we need to be louder and more decisive to study the terms and conditions before we even move our pen.

Iraqi leaders should keep their reservations about rushing the talks, partly because they believe it makes little sense to negotiate with America before the current term has ended for Bush.

I agree with many intellectual that American policy is not clear and it is wise to wait until the American elections to deal with a Democratic or Republican president.

I hope that everybody understand this position and everybody play will his own fairness and honesty.

Best regards
Khalid Issa Taha