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.S. transfers sovereignty
o Iraqi government early
By Tarek El-Tablawy
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The U.S.-led coalition transferred
stvereignty to an interim Iraqi government two days early
Monday in a surprise move that apparently caught insur
gents off guard, averting a feared campaign of attacks to
sibotage the historic step toward self-rule.
I Legal documents transferring sovereignty were handed
over by U.S. governor L. Paul Bremer to chief justice Midhat
a -Mahmood in a small ceremony in the heavily guarded
Green Zone. Bremer took charge in Iraq about a year ago.
•*#r < I "This is a historical day ... a day that all Iraqis have been
looking forward to,” said Iraqi President Ghazi Al-Yawer.
H This is a day we are going to take our country back into
#j|/ the international forum.”
yf Militants had conducted a campaign of car bombings,
^■dnappings and other violence that killed hundreds of
t CENTUBB- a qj s i n re cent weeks and was designed to disrupt the trans-
nderdoqs I, r announced by the Bush administration late last year.
nu can - Intially, the Americans were thought to have planned for
Ibout one more year of occupation,
ting cat'jp The response in Baghdad was mixed,
itty: W: I “Iraqis are happy inside, but their happiness is marred
.men M b fear and melancholy,” said artist Qassim al-Sabti. “Of
I, an( )i course I feel ITn still occupied. You can’t find anywhere in
1(n|C| L the world people who would accept occupation. America
these days, is like death. Nobody can escape from it.”
5 B Two hours after the ceremony Bremer left Iraq on a U.S.
jX P ec Air Force C-l 30, said Robert Tappan, an official of the for
mer coalition occupation authority. Bremer was accompa
nied by coalition spokesman Dan Senor and close members
of his staff. Bremer’s destination was not given, but an aide
said he was “going home.”
I The new interim government was sworn in six hours
after the handover ceremony, which Western governments
lirgely hailed as a necessary next step. The Arab world
voiced cautious optimism, but maintained calls for the U.S.
military to leave the country quickly.
I Interim Prime Minister lyad Allawi delivered a sweeping
Ipeech sketching out some of his goals for the country, urging
people not to be afraid of the “outlaws” fighting against
I Islam and Muslims,” assuring them that “God is with us.”
| “I warn the forces of terror once again,” he said. “We will
it forget who stood with us and against us in this crisis.”
Members of Allawi’s Cabinet each stepped forward to
lace their right hand on the Quran and pledged to accept
eir new duties with sincerity and impartiality. Behind
em, a bank of Iraqi flags lined the podium.
“Before us is a challenge and a burden and we ask God
almighty to give us the patience and guide us to take this
ic said.
A historic day for Iraq’s government
I raq's interim government was sworn in hours alter Monday's surprise transfer of sovereignty to
1 Iraqis and two days ahead of the origrnai June 30 date. The interim government wilt hold power
until, as directed fcy a U.N. Security Council resolution, there are electrons in January 2006.
country whose people deserves all goodness,” said
President Ghazi al-Yawer after taking his oath. “May God
protect Iraq and its citizens.”
Although Iraqis are now supposed to be in charge,
American security officers prevented reporters from talking
with willing Iraqi ministers after the swearing-in ceremony,
hustling journalists away even after the new government
officials had stopped to chat with them.
Several staffers from the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic
Communications are now serving as media advisers to Allawi.
The NATO alliance quickly said it would begin training
the Iraqi military, which faces a daunting task in putting
down the growing insurgency threatening the country.
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NEWS IN BRIEF
Israeli airstike hits Gaza City building
after Palestinian rocket kills two
)mia.« ;
therpef GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli helicopters firing mis-
siles struck a Hamas-linked media center early Tuesday in a
ftsponse to a pair of attacks by Palestinian militants — a rock-
even; et barrage that killed an Israeli toddler and a huge blast that
urstoci ripped through an army outpost.
devotio: The aircraft fired three missiles into a 16-story building in
Gaza City, hitting the third-floor offices of Al-Jeel, a media out
let run by the Islamic militant group, witnesses said. Two peo
ple were hurt.
Minutes later, helicopters also fired a missile at a building
housing a metal workshop in the Nusseirat refugee camp in
central Gaza, witnesses said.
The army said Hamas used the center to release claims of
responsibility and distribute inflammatory material. The
workshop was used for making home-made rockets, the
army said.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Supreme Court says U.S.
cannot hold terror
suspects in legal limbo
By Anne Gearan
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The Supreme
Court ruled Monday that the war on
terrorism does not give the govern
ment a “blank check” to hold a U.S.
citizen and foreign-born terror sus
pects in legal limbo, a forceful denun
ciation of Bush administration tactics
since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Ruling in two cases, the high court
refused to endorse a central claim of
the White House: that the government
has authority to seize and detain ter
rorism suspects and indefinitely deny
access to courts or lawyers while
interrogating them.
A state of war “is not a blank check
for the president when it comes to the
rights of the nation’s citizens,” Justice
Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in the
most significant case of the day, a rul
ing that gives American-bom detainee
Yaser Esam Hamdi the right to fight
his detention in a federal court.
Separately, the court said that
nearly 600 men from 42 countries
held at a Navy prison camp at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, can use
American courts to contest their treat
ment. The Bush administration had
argued that U.S. courts had no busi
ness second-guessing detentions of
foreigners held on foreign soil.
The administration’s detention
policies have rankled allies overseas
and outraged civil liberties and
human rights groups at home.
Deborah Pearlstein, director of the
U.S. Law and Security Program at
Human Rights First, called Monday’s
rulings a broad repudiation of the
administration’s approach.
“The court said any citizen has a
right to due process and that the
administration’s position that it has
inherent executive authority ... to
detain people is just wrong under
the law.”
The court declined to rule on the
merits of a third case arising from the
hunt for terrorists. The justices sent
back to a lower court the case of Jose
Padilla, a former Chicago gang mem
ber and a convert to Islam who is
being held as an enemy combatant
amid allegations he sought to deto
nate a radiological “dirty bomb” and
blow up apartment buildings in the
United States.
The administration contends that
all the men at issue in Monday’s cases
are enemy combatants — neither
prisoners of war protected by the
Geneva Conventions nor ordinary
criminal suspects with automatic
rights to see lawyers and know the
charges against them.
Strayhorn urges deductibility
of state and local taxes
AUSTIN (AP) — Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn has released
a report stating that Texas families and the state’s economy would benefit if
state and local sales taxes were deductible on federal income tax returns.
The U.S. Congress is considering legislation to allow such deductions.
“The current system is unfair,” Strayhorn said, issuing her report Monday.
“It discriminates against Texans and the citizens of other states who have
decided against a state income tax.”
As a result, she said, Texans pay a higher percentage of taxes to the federal
government than their neighbors in Oklahoma and Arkansas, which have a
state income tax.
State income taxes are deductible on federal returns.
In a March 2002 report, Strayhorn estimated the average Texas family
would save $284 a year if it itemized its federal income tax returns. In her
updated report, Strayhorn estimates the average Texas family would save
$310 annually.
Strayhorn also is advocating for the deductibility of motor vehicle sales taxes.
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