PLAIN TALK

Leonard Horwin September 9, 2004

(310) 785-6600 tel.

(310) 785-6644 fax

plaintalk@linkline.com

http://www.leonardhorwinplaintalk.com

The Hand-Over That Wasn’t:

(Illegal Orders give the U.S. a lock on Iraq’s Economy)

Questions and Answers are cited below as “Q” and “A”

1. Q: To what “Hand-Over” am I referring?

A: The one specified in the annexed article.

2. Q: What is the problem with the “Hand-Over”?

3. Q: Essentially, that it isn’t a “Hand-Over.”

4. Q: Why not?

A: Because it refers to the U.S. Paul Bremer III administration’s supposed “Hand-Over” of control of Iraq to an economy which would be controlling itself.

5. Q: Well, isn’t that is occurring?

A: No. Instead, Bremer has purported to turnover the control of Iraq to its residents, but in fact has preceded the turnover by leaving “illegal orders” which give the U.S. a lock on Iraq’s economy.”

6. Q: What is wrong with that?

A: First, this is a violation of international law. In this connection, I quote from the above-noted article:

“Clearly, the Bremer orders fundamentally altered Iraq’s existing laws. For this reason, they are also illegal. Transformation of an occupied country’s laws violates the Hague regulations of 1907 (ratified by the United States) and the U.S. Army’s Law of the Land Warfare.”

“Indeed, in a leaked memo, the British attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, warned Prime Minister Tony Blair that ‘major structural economic reforms would not be authorized by international law.’”

7. Q: Is it just a question of international law with which we are dealing?

A: No. What the Bush administration through Bremer has done with Iraq is to have achieved a permanent “U.S. lock on Iraq’s economy.”

8. Q: What is wrong with that?

A: Such a “lock on Iraq’s economy” is a denial of the people’s self-control. This is a sure formula for continued war, including guerilla warfare and invitation to terrorist galore to take the side of the Iraq’s residents to kill or destroy as many over-takers of Iraq’s economy.

* * *

cc: George W. Bush, President

Richard Cheney, Vice President

Colin Powell, Secretary of State

Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense

Condoleezza Rice, National Security

Advisor

Colonel Oliver North

Tom Ridge, Secretary of Homeland

Security

John Ashcroft, U.S. Attorney General

Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Great Britain

Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary

Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker of the

U.S. House of Representatives

Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel

Benjamin Netanyahu, Economy Minister for the Israeli Government

Israel’s “Women In Green”

National Unity Coalition for Israel

Arianna Huffington, Syndicated

Columnist

Oriana Fallaci, International Journalist,

Interviewer and Author

Yohanan Ramati, Chairman, Jerusalem

Institute for Western Defense

Gerardo Joffe, FLAME (Facts & Logic

About the Middle East)

Mortimer Zuckerman, Editor in Chief -

US News and World Report

Time Magazine

Washington Post - Attn: Bob Woodward

International Jerusalem Post

The Weekly Standard – Bill Kristol, Editor

The Wall Street Journal - Editorial and

Op-Ed Department

Los Angeles Times, Op-Ed Department

Los Angeles Times, Antonia Juhasz