U.S. troops under Iraq's authority for first time

01/01/2009| IslamWeb

The U.S. military in Iraq came under Iraqi authority on Thursday for the first time since the U.S.-led occupation in 2003.

The U.S. force in Iraq, now more than 140,000 strong, had operated since 2003 under a U.N. Security Council resolution which expired at midnight on New Year's Eve. Starting January 1, troops are operating with authority granted by the Iraqi government in a pact agreed by Washington and Baghdad.

The pact gives U.S. troops three years to leave Iraq, revokes their power to detain Iraqis without an Iraqi warrant, and subjects contractors and off-duty U.S. troops to Iraqi law.

U.S. and Iraqi officials were to hold a ceremony on Thursday morning to formally hand over control of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified Baghdad compound from which the United States governed Iraq directly for more than a year after the invasion.

"The role of the coalition forces (in the Green Zone) will be secondary, centered on training Baghdad brigade troops to use equipment to detect explosives and advising Iraqi forces," Qassim Moussawi, spokesman of Iraqi forces in Baghdad, said.

U.S. troops across Iraq remain under U.S. command but their operations must be authorized by a joint U.S.-Iraqi committee and they can detain Iraqis only with a warrant from an Iraqi judge. They are to leave the streets of Iraqi towns and cities by mid-2009 and withdraw from the country by the end of 2011.

Other U.S.-allied troops, including 4,100 British, are to leave Iraq within seven months.

On Wednesday, U.S. officials finished vacating the marble Saddam-era palace in the center of the Green Zone that had been the seat of U.S. power in Iraq since 2003.

Some 15,000 prisoners held at U.S. military detention camps must now be charged with crimes under Iraqi law or, according to the security pact, gradually let go.

Iraq remains deeply scarred by the war. Baghdad neighborhoods are divided by checkpoints and concrete walls. Millions of people who fled violence have yet to return home.

Many Iraqis still resent what they see as a U.S. military occupation. They are also hungry for basic services, jobs, and lasting peace. Majid Mola, an engineer, dismissed as meaningless the handover billed by Maliki's government as a major victory.

"Where are the government services? Where is the electricity? People want practical things," he said.

In what could become one of the most enduring images of the U.S. military adventure, Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi won applause across the Middle East when he threw his shoes at Bush and called him a "dog" at a recent news conference with Maliki.

His trial for assaulting a head of state is pending.

PHOTO CAPTION

U.S. soldiers in Iraq

Agencies