Iraqi Officials Question Coalition Forces' International Immunity

Obviously scared when faced with recent waves of news reporting horrible acts performed by the US troops in particular, against Iraqi citizens, many Iraqi leaders have started to wonder if a review regarding the US law which stipulates the lack of prosecution of coalition forces within Iraqi courts, called CPA Order 17, enacted two years ago by the US Coalition Provisional Authority, should actually be changed.

While on an official Middle East tour, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki questioned the provisions of this law as well. During a state visit in Kuwait, al-Maliki stated that "the immunity given to members of coalition forces encouraged them to commit such crimes in cold blood". "That makes it necessary to review it", he added.

If this is going to actually come true, then it would produce a large rift between the US and Iraqi authorities, which have slowly but gradually grown at odds with each other over allegations of massive atrocities in recent months. Going in contradiction with what he declared last month, that the strength of the US forces is welcome in Iraq, given the social and political chaos, Maliki stated at the beginning of this week that the Iraqi government will have to open its own investigation regarding the latest charges of rape and murder of US soldiers on a family from Mahmudiyah in March.

The US response came quickly: according to William Caldwell, the US military spokesman, during a briefing in Baghdad, the American authorities are "vigorously" pursuing the Mahmudiyah case as well as others, and should the charges prove right, then they would be absurd, since US troops provided many beneficial contributions to Iraq up to this point.