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Monday, June 28, 2004

More info on the turnover

Old Post: I first mentioned the early turnover of Iraqi sovereignty below.

Robert Alt has a good article on the early turnover at National Review. Robert Alt has more to say on how the US has been slowly turning more and more power over to the Iraqis for the last couple of months:
In the days and weeks leading up to the transition, many in the United States criticized the June 30 transition date as too soon — while some, such as Sen. John Kerry, were critical of the decision to set a firm deadline for the transfer of power at all. Even so, the transition began much earlier than anyone anticipated. On March 28, 2004, the Ministry of Health became the first of Iraq's 26 ministries to shift to Iraqi control, thus beginning the transition process that was completed last week, when the last of the ministries came under Iraqi authority. Today's ceremony was in many ways just that — ceremonial — representing a change in authority that had effectively already occurred.

Despite some claims to the contrary, the autonomy enjoyed by the agencies is substantive rather than merely symbolic. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Electricity, and the Ministry of Communication will retain only a small handful of Coalition consultants, who will have no operational authority, but will simply provide technical assistance as requested by the respective Iraqi ministers. Other ministries, like the Ministry of Education — whose 300,000 employees make it the largest of the 26 — will have no Coalition consultants at all.

All in all, a good day for Iraq.

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