may the us army arbitrarily exercize regular police powers arbitrarily
over the iraqi civilian population??

Greetings heshele1,

10 U.S.C. § 401 of the U.S. Code provides that "...the Secretary of a
military department may carry out humanitarian and civic assistance
activities in conjunction with authorized military operations of the
armed forces in a country if the Secretary concerned determines that
the activities will promote...the security interests of both the
United States and the country in which the activities are to be
carried out..."

I do not want to ignite a political argument about the matter, but I
think this can code section can easily be construed to allow the
United States military under the auspices of the Secretary of Defense
or other military department Secretary may exercise regular police
powers as "civic assistance" to promote the security of the United
States and Iraq.

As a side note:

The US military forces are generally prohibited (10 U.S.C. § 375) in
directly participating in civilian law enforcement (ie: arrest,
seizure or search) unless otherwise authorized by law. This provision
however, seems only to apply to law enforcement activities within the
confines of the contiguous United States.

10 U.S.C. § 378 provides that "Nothing in this chapter shall be
construed to limit the authority of the executive branch in the use of
military personnel or equipment for civilian law enforcement purposes
beyond that provided by law before December 1, 1981."

You can search the U.S. Code from Cornell Law School's website:
http://www.law.cornell.edu

The full text of the above codification referring to the civic
authority of the military can be found at
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/401.html

Hope this answer has been helpful to you.

Best regards,

mosquitohawk-ga

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Clarification of Answer by mosquitohawk-ga on 13 Apr 2003 11:20 PDT

My second paragraph was badly worded, here it is again:

I do not want to ignite a political argument about the matter, but I
think this code section can easily be construed to allow the
United States military under the auspices of the Secretary of Defense
or other military department Secretary to exercise regular police
powers in the form of "civic assistance" to promote the security of
the United States and Iraq.

i believe the response to be clear. concise and complete...accepted with thanks