Early November 2003: Bush Administration Devises Alternative Plan to Implement Market Reforms in Iraq

Paul Bremer meets with President Bush in Washington for a private meeting. The Coalition Provision Authority’s effort to implement a number of structural changes to Iraq’s economy is failing, and Washington needs to rethink its strategy. Members of the US-backed Iraqi interim government oppose the changes, and corporate attorneys are advising their clients that Bremer’s orders opening up Iraq to foreign investment could be challenged by a future Iraqi government on the basis that the orders violated UN Resolution 1483 (see May 22, 2003). That resolution stated that the US and Britain were bound to the Hague Regulations of 1907, which bars occupying powers from changing the laws of the occupied country (see October 18, 1907). If corporations purchase Iraqi state assets, and a future elected government declares Bremer’s orders illegal, the companies could lose their investments, the lawyers warn. The risk is so great that not a single insurance company is willing to insure its corporate clients for the “political risk” of losing their investment to expropriation. Bremer returns to Iraq from Washington with a Plan B. On June 30, the Coalition Provisional Authority will be dissolved and the sovereignty of Iraq will be turned over to a US-backed transitional government. That government will be bound by an “interim constitution” (see March 8, 2004), which will contain a clause barring the transitional government from modifying any of Bremer’s laws. [Harper's, 9/24/2004]