Happy New Year to everyone, and hopefully 2009 will be a good year for us all. Especially in Iraq. We’ll see how it goes, and I will be sure to post what I can about any of the issues and problems associated with the hand over. One thing I did pick up on in this article, was the issue of Iraqi prisoners.
U.S. troops across Iraq remain under U.S. command but their operations must now be authorised by a joint committee. They can detain Iraqis only with a warrant from an Iraqi judge and are to leave the streets of Iraqi towns and cities by mid-2009.
Some 15,000 prisoners held at U.S. military detention camps must now be charged with crimes under Iraqi law or freed.
I really hope that Iraq’s legal system will be able to properly deal with this, and I have to think that out of those 15,000 that there are still a few with some fight in them. We’ll see how this goes, and I am sure we will be carefully watching who gets released and where they go.
As for a joint committee authorizing operations, I am somewhat skeptical. My fear for this would be OPSEC and this part of the handover will take a lot of trust. All we can do is wait and see. –Matt
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Iraqi troops take charge of Baghdad’s Green Zone
Thu Jan 1, 2009 9:56am EST
* U.S. troops come under Iraqi mandate
* PM marks “sovereignty” with national holiday
* Iraqi forces assume control of Green Zone
By Waleed Ibrahim and Tim Cocks
BAGHDAD, Jan 1 (Reuters) – U.S. forces in Iraq came under an Iraqi mandate on Thursday, an event the country’s leader said had finally restored Iraq’s sovereignty nearly six years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
In one immediate change, U.S. forces handed over responsibility to Iraqi troops for the Green Zone, a fortified swathe of central Baghdad off limits to most Iraqis, who widely view it as a symbol of foreign military occupation.
(more…)
