The spin contortions the CPA’s going through to make it look like Iraq will have “full sovereignty” after June 30 are worthy of a surrealistic performance art piece (think Riviera in Neuromancer). This time it’s in the form of some CINO nonsense (Custody in Name Only):
The United States will hand legal custody of Saddam Hussein and an undetermined number of other former regime figures to the interim Iraqi government as soon as Iraqi courts issue warrants for their arrest and request the transfer, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
However, the United States will retain physical custody of Saddam and the prisoners, while giving Iraqi prosecutors and defense lawyers access to them, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Now I know keeping him in our physical custody only makes sense. If Iraq’s security is not capable of protecting/securing a prisoner with such a high profile, the US would be foolish to hand him over physically. But we’re gonna need a new word for “Orwellian” to describe the spin going on to make it look like Iraq’s interim government is anything more than a cast of photo-op puppets.
Any criminal lawyers who can explain whether “legal custody” in this context is less silly than it seems?
Isn’t “possession 9 points of the law”?
Yeah, it’s hard to argue with the intent to make the Iraqis think they ‘have their man’, but not only don’t they, but they won’t think they do. (stare at that sentence for a while…)
It’s soooo tiring trying to pierce the veil of BushCo obfuscation (nice word for lies).
A summary execution in public would settle this whole thing: how about a beheading?
So…to take your analogy on Neuromanceresque surrealism to its endpoint… what you’re saying is the CPA is going to have its virtual spine torn out of its back while having sex with the new Iraqi government which it has called into existence piece by piece in front of a paying audience?
Now that I think about it, that’s pretty much exactly what I’m afraid will happen. Edward, you are a master of metaphor.