An explosive legal obstacle, currently ignored, lurks beneath the surface of the Iraq war debate--international law likely to ensnare and possibly crumple the American conqueror's grandiose plans to transform the nation it now occupies. Despite what many people, including many Washington officials, seem to believe, the US government is prohibited from simply seizing Iraqi oil revenues and spending the money however it chooses. Indeed, the US occupying force cannot remove the country's judges and suspend Iraq's domestic laws. Nor may it create massive unemployment by firing police, civil servants or military troops. On the contrary, an occupying force is required to maintain civil order and humanitarian necessities, to protect private property and public assets as well as individual rights. In fact, international law is designed to prevent an occupying nation from transforming a defeated society into its own likeness.

The obstacle is the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which codified in greater detail the principles of "occupation law" first framed by the Hague Convention of 1907--rules of warfare meant to prevent a military power from plundering a defeated nation or reordering the country (as Hitler repeatedly did) to conform to the conqueror's ideology and economics. The conventions were ratified by the United States long ago. Furthermore, both the United States and Britain have accepted their designation as "occupying powers" in Iraq.

Bush may think he can safely blow off international law, as he has before, but once Iraqis have re-established a sovereign government they will be free to sue the US government for damages and reparations. They may also sue Halliburton, the oil companies or any other businesses acting as contract agents for the Coalition Provisional Authority. At a minimum, Americans are likely to discover that the war costs do not end once the troops are home. This venture could morph into multibillion-dollar lawsuits that go on for many years. The International Court of Justice dealt with claims from the 1979 Iranian takeover of the US Embassy for many years; they are still in dispute before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague. "Occupation law imposes high performance standards on an occupying military power, and liability can arise quickly," David Scheffer, Bill Clinton's former ambassador for war crimes, has warned.

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