THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

I fail to see where the constitution was circumvented. Can you point that out?

Arrested terrorists do not fall within constitutional protections or the Geneva Convention though the administration has explicitly ordered humane treatment of same.

Tuesday March 1

Iraq's constitution writers face formidable task


By Gideon Long

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's prime minister says the drafting of a new constitution will be as important to his country as the writing of the U.S. constitution was to America over 200 years ago.

Negotiations will be hard fought, and to a tight deadline.

Those given the task of drafting the treaty will have only a few months to play with, and will struggle to come up with a formula which satisfies everyone in Iraq's fragmented society of Sunni Arabs, Shi'ite Muslims, secular nationalists, Kurds, Christians, Turkmen and others.

Fierce arguments are expected over the extent to which Islamic Sharia law will form the basis of Iraqi law, and over the degree of autonomy the treaty will grant to Iraq's diverse ethnic groups -- most notably the Kurds in the north.

"These are issues that cannot be avoided," said Toby Dodge, an expert on Iraq at Queen Mary's College in London.

"I expect they'll run it right down to the wire, there will be a lot of last minute compromises and the final result will be deliberately vague, and aspirational rather than detailed."

Noah Feldman, a professor of law at New York University and a former adviser to the U.S. authorities which ran Iraq immediately after the war, also said he expected the new constitution to be short on detail and often imprecise.

He described the timeframe for drafting it as "very tight".

Iraq is currently governed according to the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), an interim constitution drawn up by Iraqi authorities -- with strong backing from the United States and Britain -- and ratified in March last year.

The new constitution is supposed to replace it, providing Iraq with a more permanent legal framework.

The TAL states the new constitution must be drafted by Aug. 15. If not, a referendum on it, due by Oct. 15, and a general election scheduled for no later than Dec. 15, will be delayed.

With Iraq's leading politicians locked in talks over the formation of a new govern

That man held at Gitmo is a US citizen.

There is a world of difference between when we began our country and the start of the new Iraq. We began our revolution ourselves, the Iraqi's had theirs thrust on them from outsiders.

how do you know who is held at gitmo?

Duplicate post for people who missed it.
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Supreme Court Overturns Key Parts of Bush Detention Policy, Affirms Rule of Law and Courts' Role as Check on Exec Power


Court Rejects Executive Branch Authority to Strip Citizens of Constitutional Protections and to Deny Access to Court for Guantanamo Detainees

Today the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Bush Administration's assertions that it has the right to indefinitely detain American citizens it deems "enemy combatants" without meaningful due process and that individuals incarcerated in the American military installation in Guantanamo have no access to U.S. Courts. The cases ruled on today were a critical test of the federal courts' role in upholding the constitutional rights of individual citizens and the rule of law against the powers of the President and the executive branch.

"This is an important victory for the Constitution and our system of checks and balances," said People For the American Way Foundation President Ralph G. Neas. "It should be unthinkable that Americans can be stripped of their constitutional rights by the stroke of a pen, without any effective way to win them back. It should be unthinkable that treatment of detainees on U.S. military installations overseas would be completely out of the realm of judicial review. That is the kind of unchecked power that this administration was asserting. Rulings that went the other way would have left Americans vulnerable to devastating abuses of power. We have seen how dangerous power without accountability can be."

The justices heard the cases of two American citizens labeled "enemy combatants" by the U.S. government: Yasir Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla. Neither defendant has been charged with a crime and both were only given brief access to legal counsel, although the Administration continued to argue they have no right to a lawyer. The two men are being held by the government indefinitely. The Court ruled that Hamdi can be detained, but must be accorded due process, and ruled that Padilla must refile his case in South Carolina, where he is detained. The Court ruled 6-3 that federal courts have jurisdiction in the Guantanamo case. People For the American Way Foundation filed amicus curiae briefs in the Guantanamo and Padilla cases.

"The Administration's breathtaking assertion of power over constitutional rights has finally been stopped," said Elliot Mincberg, Legal Director for PFAWF. "Guilt and innocence were not the issues. What was in question was whether these people would be afforded fair process. Today's decisions should help ensure that this will happen. Recent revelations about this Administration's detention practices underscore the importance of subjecting their policies to the effective scrutiny of the courts."

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cicerone imposter wrote:

That man held at Gitmo is a US citizen.

What man? There are no US citizens being detained in Guantanamo.