"What are the rights and obligations of “Occupying Powers,” the legal term for countries that occupy an adversary’s territory?"

Michael N. Schmitt is Professor of International Law at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. In this article, he notes that "As growing portions of Iraq fall to U.S. and British forces, it is a propitious time to review the basic requirements of that body of law."

We recommend Schmitt's tour of The Annexed Regulations to Hague Convention IV of 1907, the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, and customary international law setting forth the laws of belligerent occupation applicable in this conflict.

U.S. officials have said if they find out Saddam is in Syria, the military will go in and conduct a "snatch and shoot" to kill him.

All they need is "credible information." Didn't we hear that term used for the intelligence information that caused the March 20 and April 7 raids that, if Saddam is alive and in Syria, obviously missed him?

How much corroboration is necessary before the information is deemed "credible?" What if the U.S. Commanders merely want a cover to invade Syria--wouldn't "We had credible information Saddam was there" be the perfect excuse?

If US special forces in western Iraq have "credible evidence" of the former president's whereabouts, they have been told that they can enter Syria and grab him, the newspaper said. The action would be justified by US commanders under the doctrine of "hot pursuit", a disputed theory that soldiers hunting a terrorist suspect are allowed under international law to enter a foreign country without permission, the newspaper said.

We don't like the sound of this at all.

Update: Al Jazeera reports United States Central Command officials have denied the report.

ODE TO THE BAGHDAD MUSEUM
by Joe Gallagher, a former columnist for the Los Angeles Downtown News and political writer for the Los Angeles City Watch Newsletter.

Along the Tigris and Euphrates’ verdant, fertile banks the world first cities started, and in order to give thanks
their people carved in sandstone, ivory and gold
the gods that brought them harvests of the crops they bought and sold

A harp of gold from Sumer, and Hammurabi’s code
that first spoke of rules to guide our lives from youth until we’re old
The final books of Gilgamesh, that first heroic tale
All these things and so many more were accumulated there

No kingdom lasts forever, no walls are tall enough
To the victor goes the spoils, and the fallen then must trust
that their heritage of expression is not trampled into dust

The BBC reports that the U.S. has changed its position from yesterday and is now acknowledging that it shot and killed Iraqis in Mosul.

Brigadier-General Vince Brooks said US marines and special forces soldiers fired at demonstrators on Tuesday after they came under attack from people shooting guns and throwing rocks. "Fire was indeed delivered from coalition forces, it was lethal fire and some Iraqis were killed as a result, we think the number is in the order of seven and we think there were some wounded as well," he said.

We posted some of the witness' verision of events here.

The French newspaper Le Monde reports that the U.S. struck a deal with Maher Sufyan, the Commander of the Republican Guard, and gave him his freedom.

The commander of Republican Guard troops defending Baghdad struck a deal with US forces not to fight in exchange for his freedom, it was claimed yesterday. The French newspaper Le Monde said the commander, Maher Sufyan, reached an agreement with US forces in which he ordered his soldiers to surrender in exchange for his transfer by helicopter to an undisclosed safe haven.

Reportedly, a U.S. helicopter took Sufyan to an undisclosed location after he got his troops to lay down their arms.

Bump and Update:

Ali is doing well after his first surgery.

Ali has arrived in Kuwait City, transported by the U.S. Military (MSNBC tv). Here's an update on his medical condition.

Plans are being made to fly twelve-year old Ali Ismaeel Abbas, who lost both arms and his family when his house in Iraq was bombed, to a Kuwait hospital for treatment. Doctors say that if he doesn't receive imminent treatment, he will die within the next few days.

There's only one problem: U.S. authorities in Kuwait say they don't know about the plans.

A spokesman for Ibn Sina hospital in Kuwait said U.S. forces were expected to fly Ali from Baghdad to an airfield in Kuwait, where an ambulance would be waiting for him. "It is already arranged and our people are waiting," hospital director Abudullatif al-Sahli told Reuters. However, a spokeswoman for U.S military forces in Kuwait said they did not know of any such operation.

Someone, help this boy, please. If the U.S. didn't know about the plans at the time of being interviewed for this article, it knows now. There is absolutely no excuse for the U.S. leaving this boy to die. Millions of people around the world have reacted with horror and sympathy to this boy's plight. Rumsfeld and Bush will have a black mark forever if they don't intervene in time.

Update: Yesterday the child accused the media of breaking its promise to him to get him help.

Agence-France Presse reports that U.S. troops opened fire on a group of protesters in Mosul, Iraq, killing ten:

At least 10 people were killed and scores wounded in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul when US troops fired on a crowd angered by a speech by the new US-backed governor, witnesses reported. The charges were denied by a US military spokesman in the city Tuesday, who said troops had first come under fire from at least two gunmen and fired back, without aiming at the crowd.

Witnesses provide this account:

But witnesses charged that US troops fired into the crowd after it became increasingly hostile towards the new governor, Mashaan al-Juburi.

"They (the soldiers) climbed on top of the building and first fired at a building near the crowd, with the glass falling on the civilians. People started to throw stones, then the Americans fired at them," said Ayad Hassun, 37.

"Dozens of people fell," he said, his own shirt stained with blood.

"The people moved toward the government building, the children threw stones, the Americans started firing," another witness, Marwan Mohammed, 50, told AFP.

According to a third witness, Abdulrahman Ali, 49, the US soldiers opened fire when they saw the crowd running at the government building.

Meanwhile, as the process of determining future Iraqi leadership got underway in Nasiriyah in Southern Iraq, 20,000 marched in protest chanting, "Yes to freedom... Yes to Islam... No to America, No to Saddam." U.S. media censorship has emerged.

And US forces tried for the first time Tuesday to prevent the media from covering a third day of anti-US protests outside the hotel housing a US operations base in central Baghdad.

Update: Additional news sources on the incident:

New York Times

The Independent

Arab News

If Saddam is in Syria, where might he be? On April 5, Debkafiles posted this report:

Exclusive Middle East sources have tracked down the top Iraqi leadership’s bolt-hole. It is a large 1,600-room luxury resort with 600 meters of private sandy beach in the Mediterranean coastal town of Latakiya called Cote d’Azur De Cham Resort, prepaid and chartered in toto by Baghdad. The group may include Saddam Hussein or his sons, but this is not confirmed. The hotel is located close to the Assad family villa. Top Iraqi officials are reported hiding there since March 23, four days after the US-led coalition invaded Iraq. They are guarded by a Syrian commando unit armed with anti-air missiles while Syrian naval missile boats secure the port.

Today Debka reports that Al Qaeda is poised for a comeback with a planned attack in Turkey over Passover:

Osama bin Laden’s organization is reported preparing to stage a comeback by a fresh terrorist assault in Turkey against American or Israel/Jewish targets over Passover this week or Easter, next.

The Guardian reports that Bush has vetoed preliminary planning for a war against Syria--plans Rumsfeld wanted to begin making.

In the past few weeks, the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, ordered contingency plans for a war on Syria to be reviewed following the fall of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, his undersecretary for policy, Doug Feith, and William Luti, the head of the Pentagon's office of special plans, were asked to put together a briefing paper on the case for war against Syria, outlining its role in supplying weapons to Saddam Hussein, its links with Middle East terrorist groups and its allegedly advanced chemical weapons programme. Mr Feith and Mr Luti were both instrumental in persuading the White House to go to war in Iraq.

....However, President George Bush, who faces re-election next year with two perilous nation-building projects, in Afghanistan and Iraq, on his hands, is said to have cut off discussion among his advisers about the possibility of taking the "war on terror" to Syria.

"The talk about Syria didn't go anywhere. Basically, the White House shut down the discussion," an intelligence source in Washington told the Guardian.

DynCorp is advertising for employees, specifically, Rent-a-Cops to send to Iraq to police the country.

"When the area is safe, we will go in. Watch CNN. In the meantime fax us a resume if you want a job," Homer Newman, a Dyncorp recruiter told Corpwatch. But Chuck Wilkins, a company spokesman in Virginia, said: "The contract hasn't yet been awarded."

Yet a website has been offering DynCcrp jobs to "individuals with appropriate experience and expertise to participate in an international effort to re-establish police, justice and prison functions in post-conflict Iraq." The company is looking for active duty or recently retired cops and prison guards and "experienced judicial experts." Applicants must be US citizens with ten years of sworn civilian domestic law enforcement. The site even has a toll free number and a "cops.recruiting@dyncorp.com" email address for applicants.

The website explains that recruits will help "establish police stations and monitor activities determining the selection, screening and training processes for police officers, demonstrating police practices and techniques used by democratic societies advising local police on criminal investigation methods and monitoring their progress working side-by-side with police officers from around the world reporting humanitarian violation."

DynCorp has a questionable history with respect to policing in other parts of the world.

Here is this morning's wrap-up of expert opinion on Where Is Saddam?

Martin Sieff, UPI Senior News Analyst, makes the case for believing Saddam is dead.

We'll throw in our two cents. We think he and one son are alive, enjoying safe haven in Syria. Over a week ago, Jim Capozzola of Rittenhouse speculated Saddam was alive, had left Iraq and that the U.S. knew where he was. That got us thinking about it.

After the second bombing targeting Saddam, we began leaning towards believing Saddam escaped both bombings.

Here's our current theory: One of Saddam's sons was killed in the first "decapitation" attack. Saddam was slightly wounded. He was at the location of the second attack and survived. He used a cell phone to put into effect pre-arranged plans to transfer $1 billion to Syria in exchange for safe haven. He and his second son are in Syria.

We believe the U.S. knew right away he went to Syria. We think they knew from interception of communications concerning the funds transfer.

We listened to Rumsfeld say he doesn't know where Saddam is. Technically, one could say Rumsfeld was telling the truth if what he meant by that is he doesn't know which town Saddam is in, or which house or palace. He didn't say he didn't know what country Saddam is in.

Anyway, this is just all speculation, but given Bush's harsh words for Syria Sunday, it seems plausible enough to mention it.

The seven rescued POWS, five of them cooks, supply clerks and mechanics of the 507th Maintenance Company and two of them Apache pilots, described their ordeal to reporters Sunday:

In their first interviews after being freed, all seven former prisoners described a harrowing journey through the Iraq war -- from their ill-fated missions and capture through an arduous imprisonment where death often seemed around the corner. Speaking to reporters aboard a C-130 Hercules transport plane evacuating them from Iraq, they alternated between tears and smiles and hollow gazes as they told their stories.

The article is filled with direct quotes and narratives and well worth reading.