Justice Dept. delegation to Iraq couldn't work or talk

[Nambe]

WASHINGTON (USA Today

Members of an American delegation sent to Iraq to begin restoring that nation's civilian justice system made little progress and were restricted from publicly discussing their work, said a federal judge who was part of the group. ---

Merritt was particularly annoyed by the U.S. occupation authority's attempt to control information by limiting what his group and others involved in rebuilding said to the news media.

Merritt is a former chief judge of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. He said members of his delegation were given a directive authorized by the chief U.S. administrator in Baghdad, Paul Bremer. It said all contact with the news media had to be cleared by top officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

Merritt said the order seemed odd for a group of judges, lawyers and law enforcement experts who had been sent to Iraq by the Justice Department to help put Iraqis on a course for more individual freedom. ''When I read it, I thought it must be a joke,'' said Merritt, 67. ''It's clearly unconstitutional. It's a hell of an irony, given that we were there teaching them the value of liberty and free speech.'' ---

Banish bush From Texas Too

[kayell]

1. kick

and a link a Yahoo to rate the article
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20030717/ts_usatoday/5330696

[ewagner]

6. Does this sound familiar?

Isn't this like the *Bush administrations internal discipline to keep everyone "on message"?

...and just what is the message that Bremer wants?

btw...rated the yahoo story...thanks for the tip......

[NYC]

2. Great quote.

. ''When I read it, I thought it must be a joke,'' said Merritt, 67. ''It's clearly unconstitutional. It's a hell of an irony, given that we were there teaching them the value of liberty and free speech.'' ---

Another good quote:

The directive authorized by Bremer appears to be an effort to keep ''everyone speaking with one mind and one message over there,'' said Merritt, who left Baghdad in late June. ''That is just contrary to my understanding of the (U.S.) Constitution. It's like something you would hear from an advertising agency or some corporation.''


"current average rating is 4.37 with 8 votes"

[saigon68]

4. Unreal

This whole mess stinks to high heaven

[Rose Siding]

3. Very strange. Merritt is the one that put forth a story

connecting Saddam to alqaeda in the Tennesean. It is fairly rebuttable but still found in some rw articles

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/889jldct.asp

[htuttle]

5. I've seen that

When I read the other articles that Merritt had written, it became clear why they didn't really use this canard outside the audience of their faithful. They'd probably hoped that Merritt would pass on the 'Saddam/al Queda' allegations they'd dropped in his lap, but then found he couldn't be controlled so they left it alone.