April 30, 2003
Bush to declare fighting 'over'
BBC - US President George W Bush is set to declare that the fighting in Iraq is essentially over in a speech he will make on Thursday. He will say that "the major combat operations have ended and... reconstruction has begun", White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
The US leader will make the declaration in a televised address aboard a US aircraft carrier on Thursday evening, the spokesman added. But Mr Fleischer also warned that the president's speech would not mark the end of hostilities "from a legal point of view".
Under the Geneva Conventions, once war is declared over, the victorious army must release prisoners-of-war and halt operations targeting specific leaders. Coalition forces are still pursuing leading members of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime and the former dictator himself.
Posted By Gabriel Syme (Samizdata) at April 30, 2003 12:31 PM
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Aunty could not resist one slam -
"Our correspondent in Washington, Rob Watson, says this is probably as close as the president will ever get to saying that the war is over and won."
This is probably to point out the earlier ""Under the Geneva Conventions, once war is declared over, the victorious army must release prisoners-of-war and halt operations targeting specific leaders.
Coalition forces are still pursuing leading members of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime and the former dictator himself."
That is where we would become an "occupying power", with a lot of other considerations: and since we do not want to occupy Iraq in the traditional sense, we will hold this as a cease-fire until a formal government is in place. Means that Iraqis can take over policing, oil fields, power, water, and all that stuff without having to be declared agents of the coalition.
Watch for more spin on this for a while, as we get accused of not living up to our responsibilities and walking out on Iraq and all sorts of other stuff.
I don't know what spin you are talking about John.
The Geneva and the Hague conventions, of which we are signatories, allow for no ambiguity in defining us as an occupying power once hosilities are ended. Moreover, if you are familiar with US law, but the terms of our own "Law of Land Warfare" we will be as well. If you read the press and government statements in Australian, Holland, Poland and the UK, which are going to be contributing occupation troops they are already making references to their forces being considered "occupying powers."
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/09/1049567749304.html
Perhaps you might wish to find one convention to which the US is a signatory, or our own Law of Land Warfare which defines a "liberating force" as different from an "occupying power." I'll save you some time, you can't.
If we start releasing POWs, untill there is an internatioanally recognized government, we are an occupying power.
Actually as a post script the conventions do not mandate that a end to hositilites be declared, only that military control be established. The US has previously insisted on other states being occuping powers even while some resistance was still present. The key precedent appears to be the collapse of organized military resistance.
There are no occupying forces!
Quinn, thanks for the link and info. we do seem to be in a bind on this.
