Iraq’s new Oil Minister Thamir Ghadhban has reportedly said that all coalition advisers will leave Iraqi ministries after the 30 June handover.
Quoted by the UK’s Financial Times, he said that the ministry would reassert full control over the country’s lucrative oil industry.
[…]
“When sovereignty is regained it means that there will be no more US advisers, not only in the ministry of oil, but in every ministry in Iraq,” he was quoted as saying in Thursday’s edition of the FT.
Uh-oh. I wonder what Neocon Central will have to say about that? Let’s see what Bureaucrat Man has in mind:
A Board of Supreme Audit—also appointed by Bremer—will have representatives in every Iraqi ministry, with powers to monitor all contracts and expenditure. The US-installed members of the board will have a five-year term of office and cannot be removed except by a two-thirds vote in an elected Iraqi parliament—when one exists. US “advisors” will remain in every ministry, reporting to a virtual parallel government operating out of the American embassy in Baghdad, which, with over 3,000 staff, will be the largest in the world.
That darn pesky “sovereignty” thing. Some people are actually taking it seriously.