Sover- Sovereign- Could you spell that, please?

The closer we get to June 30, the weirder the definition of "full" becomes.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has insisted that US forces in Iraq will remain under American control after the 30 June handover of sovereignty. ...

Asked if the new government could veto a US operation, Mr Powell told a news conference with Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel: "Obviously, we would take into account whatever they might say at a political and military level."

But he said that ultimately, "US forces remain under US command and will do what is necessary to protect themselves,"

reported the BBC on May 26. A few days later, Powell repeated the assertion, according to Reuters.

"There could be a situation where we have to act and there may be a disagreement, and we have to act to protect ourselves or to accomplish a mission," Powell told the Dubai-based Middle East Broadcasting Center in an interview aired last on Wednesday,

while at the same time insisting the interim Iraqi government would be "fully sovereign." (Emphasis added.)

Indeed, as the June 2 New York Times notes,

according to a second draft of an American and British resolution for the United Nations Security Council on Iraqi sovereignty, circulated among Council members on Tuesday night, the United States security mandate would extend to December 2005,

a time, by the current timetable, months after a constitution had been approved and a permanent government put in place.

Fully sovereign - but unable to control the actions of 160,000 foreign troops on its soil, troops that remain free to "accomplish missions" of their own choosing. Liars.

There's more. The Times goes on to say that

[c]onfusion over sovereignty extends beyond military matters to questions of legal immunity for Americans, accounting practices, treatment of prisoners and oversight of government ministries.

Americans in the military and in private business now enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution and liability in Iraq. But some lawyers say the issue will have to be renegotiated once sovereignty is restored.

In addition, American officials say from 110 to 160 American advisers will be layered through Iraq's ministries, in some cases on contracts signed by the occupation, extending into the period after June 30.

Another serious and possibly bigger issue is the status of laws passed by the now-dissolved Iraqi Governing Council.

[L]imits on the new government's powers are laid down in a transitional law passed by the Governing Council in March.

This mandates the government to organise elections to be held by January and run day-to-day affairs, but not to pass new laws or alter the transitional law itself,

says Reuters on June 3. While most attention has focused on those laws' provisions for minority religious and cultural rights, they also include - more, I expect, to the interest of the White House - privatization of all industries other than oil, strict limits on taxation, barring of restrictions on foreign investments, and freedom from liability for those investors.

Meanwhile, AP said on Friday,

[t]he latest draft [Security Council] resolution - the third in less than two weeks - also spelled out the limits on the new government's activities, barring it from taking "any actions affecting Iraq's destiny" beyond the seven months it will be in power.

You can count on the US to maintain that the signing of any long-term contracts that might possibly in some way however small to be of benefit to the Iraqis rather than the transnational corporations setting their hooks on the land is such an "action."

Update: In the latest draft of the proposed Security Council resolution, the US and the UK have made the concession that the interim government will be able to have "coalition" forces leave Iraq if it so desires. Previous versions would have expressed the Council's "readiness" to end the US mandate before its expiration in early 2006; this one says the Council "will terminate" that mandate if the "sovereign government of Iraq" asks it to.

But since this comes after a fawning speech by new prime minister Iyad Allawi - accurately described by AP as "a longtime exile with close ties to the CIA and State Department but with little popular support in Iraq" - in which he said withdrawal of US-led troops would be a "major disaster," I can't think it means much.