Balkinization: The US respects Iraq sovereignty

The US respects Iraq sovereignty

Sandy Levinson

A remarkable article by John Burns and others in the Sunday NYTimes itells the tale of American capituation to a decision by the so-called Iraqi government (I say so-called because there is no evidence whatsoever that the "government" is capable of governing anything or anybody outside the Green Zone, and even the latter is open to question) that US authorities knew to be a recipe for disaster. Relevant parts of the article are as follows:

.... The time as the helicopter took off was 5:05 a.m., and Mr. Hussein had 65 minutes to live. But as he flew over Baghdad’s darkened suburbs, he can have known little of the last-minute battle waged between top Iraqi and American officials — and among the Americans themselves — over whether the execution, fraught with legal ambiguities and Islamic religious sensitivities, should go ahead.

American opposition to executing him in haste centered partly on the fact that the Id al-Adha religious holiday, marking the end of the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, began for Sunnis at sunrise on Saturday.....

The taunts Mr. Hussein endured from Shiite guards as he stood with the noose around his neck have made headlines around the world, and stirred angry protests among his fellow Iraqi Sunnis. But the story of how American commanders and diplomats fought to halt the execution until midnight on Friday, only six hours before Mr. Hussein was hanged, is only now coming into focus, as Iraqi and American officials, in the glare of international outrage over the hanging, compete with their versions of what happened.

It is a story of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, trying to coerce second-tier American military and diplomatic officials into handing over Mr. Hussein, first on Thursday night, then again on Friday. The American push back was complicated by the absences of Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the top American military commander, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., who were both out of Iraq on leave. The American message throughout was that rushing Mr. Hussein to the gallows could rebound disastrously, as it did....

The hanging spread wide dismay among the Americans. Aides said American commanders were deeply upset by the way they were forced to hand Mr. Hussein over, a sequence commanders saw as motivated less by a concern for justice than for revenge. In the days following the hanging, recriminations flowed between the military command and the United States Embassy, accused by some officers of abandoning American interests at midnight Friday in favor of placating Mr. Maliki and hard-line Shiites....

When the tribunal’s appeals bench announced that it had upheld the death sentences on Dec. 26, three weeks into the appeal, even prosecutors were stunned. Defense lawyers said Mr. Hussein was being railroaded under pressure from Mr. Maliki, who told a BBC interviewer shortly after the Dujail verdict that he expected the ousted ruler to be hanged before year’s end.
The suspicion that the judges had submitted to government pressure was shared by some of Americans working with the tribunal, who had stifled their growing disillusionment with the government’s interference for months. Among a host of other complaints, the Americans’ frustrations focused on the government’s dismissal of two judges seen as too indulgent with Mr. Hussein, and its failure to investigate seriously when three defense lawyers were killed. The appeals court’s apparent eagerness to fast-forward Mr. Hussein to the gallows — and the scenes at the execution itself — was, for some of the Americans, the last straw....

At 10:30 p.m., Ambassador Khalilzad made a last-ditch call to Mr. Maliki asking him not to proceed with the hanging. When the Iraqi leader remained adamant, an American official said, the ambassador made a second call to Washington conveying “the determination of the Iraqi prime minister to go forward,” and his conclusion that there was nothing more, consistent with respect for Iraqi sovereignty, that the United States could do.
Senior Bush administration officials in Washington said that Mr. Khalilzad’s principal contact in Washington was Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and that she gave the green light for Mr. Hussein to be turned over, despite the reservations of the military commanders in Baghdad. One official said that Ms. Rice was supported in that view by Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser.

“It literally came down to the Iraqis interpreting their law, and our looking at their law and interpreting it differently,” the official said. “Finally, it was decided we are not the court of last appeal for Iraqi law here. The president of their country says it meets their procedures. We are not going to be their legal nannies.”

So what does one make of this sordid story? One could tell the story as one involving legal interpretation, so that the key statement is the last quote of an unnamed "official." But is that the right framework? Given the extreme likelihood that executing Hussein under these specific circumstances would produce an adverse reaction by the Sunnis, should the US have acquiesced as a political matter? to be sure, we could have insisted that all legal i's and t's were dotted and crossed, which they most certainly were not in the haste to execute Hussein. The "interpretations" offered by the Iraqi "government" with regard to the specifics of carrying out the execution have little more legal integrity that the "findings" of the Guantanamo commissions as to who is and is not an "illegal noncombatant."

One might be forgiven for failing to predict the presence in the execution chamber of a modern cellphone with the photo option, except by this time one cannot really be surprised, either, that this happened.

Does the supine response of Secretary Rice indicate that we are indeed throwing our power behind the Shi'ite suppression of the Sunnis, whatever the resulting carnage? That is, I think, a disastrous decision, but at least it would represent conscious policy. If, however, it is not such an announcement, then is the submission to Maliki simply further evidence of the rank incompetence at every level of this Administration? And is it not a reason for condemning our Constitution that we apparently have no alternative to accepting their continuation in office for another 743 days?

Posted 11:49 PM by Sandy Levinson [link]

Comments:

And is it not a reason for condemning our Constitution that we apparently have no alternative to accepting their continuation in office for another 743 days?

Translation: And is it not a reason for you to buy my book, which is in fine bookstores right now?

Answer: No, it is not a reason to buy your book. We have the impeachment process and Congress can cut off funding and Congress can deauthorize the war and Congress can hold hearings. It looks like Democrats will start with the hearings.

# posted by

Mortimer Brezny : 2:29 AM

@mortimer: Could you please argue on the merits? One troll (ie Bart thePalma) is more than enough on this blog.

If you've been reading this blog, this position of prof. Levinson has been discussed thoroughly. He hasn't changed it mind. It is important to him, so he repeats it. Levinson is entitled to his opinion, it's his blog. I'll bet you didn't read his book...

# posted by

Anne : 6:10 AM

And is it not a reason for condemning our Constitution that we apparently have no alternative to accepting their continuation in office for another 743 days?

Yes. It doesn't make sense to condemn in its entirety the constitution which has actually done a pretty good job so far. There may be parts that aren't working out the best, but throwing out the baby with the bathwater doesn't make sense. Yes, there's a deluded dunderhead in office, but already corrective forces are making themselves felt. And, there is a possibility that GwB is just a modern-day Pompey and the worst is yet to come, but that's unlikely to say the least. The current situation seems more like a social phenomenon than a constitutional one - if it hadn't been GwB the evangelical/republican movements had put in office, then it could easily been someone else (don't misunderstand me - GwB is an adept politician).

The US has survived corrupt inept leaders in the past, and it will survive this one. Perhaps a more interesting question is whether or not democracy will survive terrorism. If every democracy flees into various forms of quasi-democratic police states in the face of terrorism until 'all the terrorists are gone', when will functional democracy re-emerge?

# posted by

John : 10:02 AM

@bitswapper: Nice one. Another question is whether democracy can survive it's voters. Let's be fair, however small the margin was, Bush was elected. And so was Hamas the president of Iran, Venezuela, former president Berlusconi and so on and so on.

In Holland we say that the voters get the government they deserve. I say that pretty much goes for the US as well even though halve of the US never voted for GWB.

# posted by

Anne : 10:24 AM

There's a false premise here, that there was "American opposition to executing him in haste". There was no such opposition. The Cheney junta desperately wanted this done as quickly as possible before the source of the gas used on the Kurds could become newsworthy. I'll give you a hint, here.

I admit I haven't read past the quoted portion. Why move into a house built on sand?

# posted by

Robert Link : 11:04 AM

anne: In Holland we say that the voters get the government they deserve.

Which is exactly why our Constitution has no small number of decidedly anti-democratic features built into it. Where I fail to agree with Professor Levinson is not on the existence of those features, but on their cost, and the opportunity cost of altering them. I do not fancy the opportunity costs of a new Convention, especially not with extant economic/socio-political power structures in place today. With a new Convention we would be saddled with the best Constitution Bechtel and Rupert Murdoch could buy. For such a Constitution you can count me out.

# posted by

Robert Link : 11:09 AM

There are many reasons to buy and read my book besides its discussion on getting rid of incompetent presidents :).

One never knows how completely cynical and conspiratorial to be with regard to this Administration. Robert Link raises an important point re the incentives that many people in the Administration, including, of course, Donald Rumsfeld, have to avoid any further probing into American complicity with Iraqi atrocities during the Iran War. But I take it that John Burns, a legendarily good reporter, is not making up the intense opposition of many in the Administration to the circumstances of the execution.

I don't know how many foreign readers (and posters) we have besides Anne, but I'd be very curious if anyone not socialized into veneration of our 18th century Constitution is as fond of (or merely complacent about) our inability to bounce a dangerously incompetent president.

That we have arrived home safely in previous episodes where we have driven while drunk doesn't support the proposition that the next episode will have a similarly happy ending (especially if the new technologies have made the consequences of an accident far greater than there were in the past).

I have no doubt there is lots of "corruption" in the Bush Administration, but, at the end of the day, corruption doesn't threaten our existence or the safety of the world. No one died at Teapot Dome. Harding was a stunningly mediocre president who in fact made some quite good appointments, including Charles Evans Hughes as Secretary of State. Were that George W. Bush were only stunningly mediocre instead of a menace.

# posted by

Sandy Levinson : 3:29 PM

Prof. Levinson:

Brings to mind the aphorism that "democracy is the worst form of government ... except for all the others".

Yes, plenty of room for tweaking the Constitution ... but as others have pointed out, plenty of room for mischief in any attempt to significantly change it. We may not like what comes out; not everyone is of the same mind as us lib'ruls....

But I'm getting intrigued; perhaps I ought to go out and buy your book. :-) And the double purpose is achieved if I tweak Mortimer's nose a bit in doing so.

The thought that we could have as malignant a maladministration as he one we have is certainly grounds for further reading and discussion....

Cheers,

# posted by

Anonymous : 4:24 PM

Professor Levinson: I take it that John Burns, a legendarily good reporter, is not making up the intense opposition of many in the Administration to the circumstances of the execution.

Touche. Guess I'll have to google about a bit to see how the Cheney junta hoped to gain by dragging it out...unless one of the gang here has a good pointer for me.

PL:...fond of (or merely complacent about)...

Even offered tongue-in-cheek, I feel it fair to protest. I am not fond of the current situation, nor do I think it fair to call folks complacent so casually. repeal-aumf.org may not be as busy or widely read as Balkinization (nice touch of understatement there, no?) but it's not for lack of trying. I disagree with your methods, sir, not your worthy goals. And I wrangle with folks here in no small part for lack of a clear next step with the repeal-aumf project. Perhaps that's why accusations of complacency sting, because I'm not sure how better to be spending my energies. (Maybe another round of faxes to Congress? Suggestions are welcome, but let's not clutter our host's space with them.)

# posted by

Robert Link : 5:19 PM

While I might not be as civil as the next guy (goes to background, your honor...), you might take a step back and look at the way you presented your arguments.

You replied to prof. Levison with a straw man argument: Where is this post did you read that prof. Levinson was promoting his book? The only reason why you implied this was to not answer to his argument, but to answer to a sales pitch that wasn't there.

Subsequently you made a second straw man. You answered the question: should we be satisfied with the US's constitution now there is no sollution to incompetent presidents, with "we have the impeachment process and Congress can cut off funding and Congress can deauthorize the war and Congress can hold hearings." If you bothered to read prof. Levison's post, you'd find that he feels that impeachment should be reserverd for high crimes and misdemeanors and not sheer stupidity. Cut off funding nor hearing will force an imcompetent president out of office either. So I repeat that that leaves you with an ad hominem attack on Prof. Levinson, just for the fun of it. Call that childish if you will. I'll respond to your other complaint in the relevant thread.

I apologize if you were trying to make an honest argument, but reiterate that in that case you failed.

# posted by

Anne : 5:21 PM

Professor Levinson, quoting John Burns: Senior Bush administration officials in Washington said that Mr. Khalilzad’s principal contact in Washington was Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and that she gave the green light for Mr. Hussein to be turned over, despite the reservations of the military commanders in Baghdad. One official said that Ms. Rice was supported in that view by Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser.

This bit, of course, only strengthens my cynicism while acknowledging Mr. Burns's reporting. The top level was for a speedy removal from public light, it was only underlings who dissented.

# posted by

Robert Link : 5:26 PM

anne: I apologize if you were trying to make an honest argument, but reiterate that in that case you failed.

First rule of engagement, know thy enemy. Google search for Mort and you'll see s/he is a prolific troll coming from the Althouse camp. So strange that so many of these rw vandals have nothing better to do with their time. Says something about their cause, don'tcha think? I'm particularly intrigued by this one. It's not easy to get banned from some of these blogs...

# posted by

Robert Link : 5:43 PM

@Robert Link: First rule of engagement: be civil, even if your opponent isn't.

I thought about adding "but I don't think you are trying to make an hones argument", but decided against it, considering that I smacked him down already. I was working on my feminin side, you see ;)

I remember in the back of my head having had the same arguement before with mortimer. He subsequently disappeared from this blog.

# posted by

Anne : 6:10 PM

anne: First rule of engagement: be civil, even if your opponent isn't.

You certainly set a good example, practicing what you preach. For my eye, where opponent means "opponent in a fair fight, in a contest of honorable conduct, partners in dialectic, &c" I can only agree. But where opponent means someone who insists on playing a zero-sum game then the options are a) decline to engage, b) arrange for the loss to net a win in a concurrent game ("...but I bet _him_ $5,000 I could pee all over your bar and make you smile about it"), c) beat them at their own game (and still show a profit in terms of time and energy.) Time and energy being what they are I'm willing to "lose" to the sucker bartender and pocket my profit. (Although crass, the joke alluded to is the best example I've yet found explaining why "rational actor" theory so often fails to predict behavior: A move which loses n in game one wins n+x in game two...)

Be that as it may, props to you for your sage advice and good example. Pax.

# posted by

Robert Link : 6:54 PM

I'll leave you with the thought that it's not clear who pissed on who's bar here. While I practised what I preached, I kind of felt like mocking this guy, just because he was whining after getting his head served to him on a silver platter. Made me feel good. Especially when after ticked me off by trying to belitte me.

Speaking of ticking me off and because I know you like this sort of thing: a present on counterinsurgency. A delight.

# posted by

Anne : 8:23 PM

For your side to win, the people do not have to like you but they must respect you, accept that your actions benefit them, and trust your integrity and ability to deliver on promises, particularly regarding their security. In this battlefield popular perceptions and rumor are more influential than the facts and more powerful than a hundred tanks.

Wow. Yes, I think I'm gonna enjoy that one. Thanks.

# posted by

Robert Link : 9:12 PM

What if higher headquarters doesn?t ?get? counterinsurgency? Higher headquarters is telling you the mission is to ?kill terrorist?, or pushing for high-speed armored patrols and a base-camp mentality. They just do not seem to understand counterinsurgency. This is not uncommon, since company-grade officers today often have more combat experience than senior officers. In this case, just do what you can. Try not to create expectations that higher headquarters will not let you meet. Apply the adage ?first do no harm?. Over time, you will find ways to do what you have to do.

In case some of you hadn't planned on reading the link Anne offered...

# posted by

Robert Link : 9:22 PM

And in closing, why you shouldn't feed the trolls (I'm sure I don't need to name names):

In counterinsurgency, the initiative is everything. If the enemy is reacting to you, you control the environment. Provided you mobilize the population, you will win. If you are reacting to the enemy ?even if you are killing or capturing him in large numbers ?then he is controlling the environment and you will eventually lose. In counterinsurgency, the enemy initiates most attacks, targets you unexpectedly and withdraws too fast for you to react. Do not be drawn into purely reactive operations: focus on the population, build your own solution, further your game plan and fight the enemy only when he gets in the way. This gains and keeps the initiative.

# posted by

Robert Link : 9:35 PM

While I practised what I preached, I kind of felt like mocking this guy, just because he was whining after getting his head served to him on a silver platter.

I'm not sure how one can respond to you "on the merits" because you haven't offered anything but nonsense.

It is no answer to the claim that Congress can hold hearings to say that Professor Levinson thinks impeachment should be reserved for high crimes and misdemeanors, because the hearings in the newly elected Democratic-controlled Congress I was referring to won't be impeachment hearings.

It also is an incoherent argument to claim that impeaching an executive official for, say, putting American soldiers at risk for war-profiteering purposes (the Halliburton argument) cannot be a high crime, because we haven't a concrete definition of what high crimes are. The historical record just isn't crystal clear.

Instead of patting yourself on the back for beheading me -- a dubious claim if ever there was one -- you might try actually making a coherent argument rather than an emotional assertion.

# posted by

Mortimer Brezny : 4:52 AM

First rule of engagement, know thy enemy. Google search for Mort and you'll see s/he is a prolific troll coming from the Althouse camp. So strange that so many of these rw vandals have nothing better to do with their time. Says something about their cause, don'tcha think? I'm particularly intrigued by this one. It's not easy to get banned from some of these blogs...

That is hilariously stupid. I haven't been banned from Althouse's blog, nor am I a troll there. I'm one of the regular comments posters there. Because one of Ann's former students kept stalking her on the website, she instituted a moderation policy. I was kidding by calling it the anti-Mortimer-Brezny policy; Ann doesn't block my posts. You can go check.

Also, if you actually look at the sites I'm listed as a commenter on, they aren't right-wing sites at all! DorfonLaw? Michael Dorf is right wing? Since when? BitchPHD (who praised my insightful comments)? BitchPhd is a liberal feminist site! The Oyez Project, which is completely non-partisan?

And if you look at the substance of the posts, most of those Ann Althouse posts involve me decrying racism amongst the libertarian right or condemning those ads Bob Corker ran against Harold Ford in TN. How does being an anti-racist make me a right-winger? It's like you didn't even read that google search.

# posted by

Mortimer Brezny : 6:02 AM

One might be forgiven for failing to predict the presence in the execution chamber of a modern cellphone with the photo option, except by this time one cannot really be surprised, either, that this happened.

Why is it that so many people see the truth as unfortunate? The crimes were the execution and the way it was carried out, not the fact that it was witnessed beyond the execution chamber.

# posted by

rmenglish@gmail.com : 3:46 PM

@Mortimer: I don't care who you are. You've began at this site with two comments in which you where ridiculing the posters. I pointed that out to you, especially because you're statements weren't supported by the facts. Subsequently you started ridiculing me. Fine by me.

# posted by

Anne : 6:06 PM

I pointed that out to you, especially because you're statements weren't supported by the facts.

You did no such thing. You attempted to attack me with comments that made no sense and then began bragging about it delusionally and when I exposed your delusional nonsense for what it was you started whining in typo-ridden posts that I had called you stupid. Grow up.

# posted by

Mortimer Brezny : 7:56 PM

You are definitely right that I have to reread my posts before post them. You'll just have to bear with me considering that English is not my mother tongue and find solace in the fact that I can never become your president.

But still you keep amaze me. You accuse me of being childish in a post in which you're argument is "did too".

# posted by

Anne : 4:21 AM