Separating Aid to Iraq From U.S. Policies

Re “Aid and Ammo Don’t Mix,” editorial, Dec. 2: Operation USA, a Los Angeles relief group providing aid to Iraq, participated in the development of guidelines insisting on freedom from U.S. military control for our humanitarian aid programs. The Times rightly condemns U.S. policy and publicly notes Secretary of State Colin Powell’s hugely destructive remarks about U.S. groups being “force multipliers” and “part of our combat team.”

Powell’s words and President Bush’s aggressive, interventionist foreign policy endanger the lives of American relief workers in places far beyond Iraq and Afghanistan -- more so, as most U.S. relief groups working in Iraq do so with U.S. government funding from an administration that insists that each charity acknowledge publicly the Bush administration as the source of its funding. Those of us who refuse such funding are nonetheless tainted by just being Americans.

Richard Walden

President, Operation USA, Los Angeles

*

Re “U.S. Resistance to Direct Vote Galvanizes Iraq’s Shiite Clerics,” Dec. 3: Ironic, isn’t it, that a U.S. administration dedicated to imposing the beliefs of religious fundamentalists here at home is deathly afraid of the same thing happening in Iraq?

Jon K. Williams

Santa Barbara

*

The economic plundering of Iraq goes nearly uncovered in the media. The Iraqi constitution prohibits privatization of major state assets and forbids foreign ownership of Iraqi firms. Yet the dubious Order No. 39 of the occupation authority’s civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer III provides for privatization of Iraqi state companies. It permits foreign ownership, with all profits leaving Iraq.

This is in direct violation of international Hague regulations. These require that an occupying power must respect, “unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country.” The U.S. Army’s Law of Land Warfare does not allow the occupant any right of sale of nonmilitary property.

International law and our own military law should be obeyed. This theft by fiat should be exposed. Otherwise Iraq may be economically destroyed by us rather than democratized.

Larry Steinberg

Los Angeles