Last week the Iraq parliament passed a Status of Forces Agreement that calls for U.S. troops to leave Iraq by 2011. But the agreement is about more than troop withdrawal and, in some areas, redefines the American presence in Iraq just in time for the Obama administration.

One such area is military contractors who, thanks to Paul Bremer’s old Coalition Provisional Authority (which now seems like a thousand years ago), were granted immunity from Iraq law. As the New York Times’ James Risen reports contractors are now subject to a "weak, often corrupt judicial system."

But that seems better than the status quo. The Iraqi government demanded legal accountability of contractors after Blackwater employees killed 17 civilians in a public square last year. One subplot of the new rules is now whether Iraq will prosecute Blackwater.

Regardless of how that shakes out it’s been insulting to the concept of a sovereign Iraq nation that occupying contractors are above the law. Iraq citizens have to live with their shaky legal systems and so should their for-profit occupiers.-MB

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