CAIRO, June 27 (IslamOnline.net) - US administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer has issued dozens of decrees that will significantly restrict the powers of the interim government, which will take over from the US-led occupation on June 30, an American newspaper revealed Sunday, June 27.

Since June 14, the US overseer has adopted 97 legal orders, which are defined by the occupation authority as "binding instructions or directives to the Iraqi people", that will remain in force even after the transfer of power, the Washington Post said.

Among the most controversial orders is the enactment of an elections law that gives a seven-member commission the power to disqualify political parties and any of the candidates they support.

Bremer has ordered that the national security adviser and the national intelligence chief named by interim premier Ayad Allawi be given five-year terms.

In so doing, the post said, Bremer is imposing Allawi's choices on the elected government that is to take over next year.

The American administrator also appointed Iraqis, chosen by his aides, to influential positions in the interim government and installed inspectors-general for five-year terms in every ministry, the daily added.

He placed media, communications and capital markets under his handpicked commissions.

Other key edicts included the suspension of death penalty, a 30-year minimum sentence for people caught selling weapons, and banning former militiamen integrated into the Iraqi armed forces from endorsing and campaigning for political candidates, the post said.

Bremer also prevented former members of the Iraqi army from holding public office for 18 months after their retirement or resignation.

Many Iraqis constituted the edicts as a bid to impose Western legal, economic and social concepts on a tradition-bound nation like Iraq.

"They have established a system to meddle in our affairs," said Mahmoud Othman, a member of the now dissolved Governing Council, which had been selected by Bremer.

"Iraqis should decide many of these issues," he added.

Iraqi judges and politicians have already rejected Bremer's interference in the country’s legal affairs, vowing to reinstate capital punishment after the transfer of sovereignty.

"I foresee real political conflict about these rules," said Amy Hawthorne, an Arab specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies elections.

The expert expected that the Iraqi people and parties would challenge the laws after July 1 because "they were created under the [occupation] authority and their legal status is a bit murky".