Iraq may reinstate some former Baathists 27.3.2007

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who left his post in Baghdad on Monday, issued a statement congratulating the prime minister and president for the draft law.

Khalilzad said it was important because it would allow many former party members "the opportunity to return to their jobs, provided they were not at the highest levels of the former regime and have not been involved in criminal activity."

The joint statement from al-Maliki and Talibani said the measure had been put to al-Maliki's Cabinet for approval but did not give details of the draft law or say when it would go to the legislature.

Iraqi officials, however, said the measure could reach the floor of the legislature as early as Tuesday. The officials agreed to discuss the draft only if not quoted by name because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.

With both al-Maliki and Talabani behind the draft, the legislation's chances of passing are seen as good, although some in the once-repressed Shiite and Kurd communities are likely to oppose it. Sunni Arab lawmakers are expected to back the measure since it benefits their group.

The proposed law would supersede post-Saddam Iraq's de-Baathification program — under which senior members of the Baath party were ejected from government and military posts. That was done under an edict from L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. official who ran the country for about a year after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam.

Many former Baathists have since been reinstated, especially teachers and some military officers, after the U.S. found it had gutted key ministries and the military with no replacement personnel among the Iraqi work force and educated elite.

Along with ousting Baathists, Bremer dissolved Iraq's military and security organizations, putting tens of thousands of armed men out of work. Much of the Sunni Arab insurgency that has proven so deadly to U.S. troops is believed to have coalesced around the dismissed military men.

Ali al-Lami, a Shiite who is chairman of the commission running the existing de-Baathification process, said he had seen the draft law and called it unconstitutional because it would allow "reinstatement of employees of Saddam's security agencies and paramilitary forces."

Al-Lami charged that the measure was written by Khalilzad, the departing U.S. ambassador.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor declined to specifically respond to al-Lami's allegation, but said American officials saw the measure as "productive and providing the basis for reconciliation and accountability."

A senior Shiite lawmaker, Redha Jawad Taqi, said the draft law was being rushed out in advance of the Arab League summit Wednesday and Thursday in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

He said the government understood the Arab nations, most of which are overwhelmingly Sunni, especially Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, were preparing sharp criticism of al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government for its failure to include Sunni Arabs.

Al-Maliki "fears the Arabs will be trying to undermine this government," Taqi said.

With Talabani, the president, planning to be at the summit, having the draft law in hand was seen as strengthening his ability to counter complaints from those nations.

Al-Lami read portions of the draft law to The Associated Press. He said it was divided into two sections, one with 14 clauses dealing with accountability for former Baathists and a second with five clauses on reconciliation.

Broadly put, al-Lami said, Iraqi citizens would have three months to challenge the reinstatement of any particular Baathist. He said a special tribunal would study challenges and have three months to make a ruling, which could not be appealed.

He said anyone unchallenged would be protected from punishment for past actions.

Any Baathist successfully challenged would still be given a state pension as if legitimately retired from the job held when Saddam was ousted, al-Lami said.

About 1.5 million of Iraq's 27 million people belonged to the Baath party — formally known as the Baath Arab Socialist Party.

Most say they joined for professional, not ideological, reasons, because career advancement, university enrollment and specialized medical care depended on party membership during Saddam's rule.

Those who advanced in the party were expected to spy on fellow Iraqis and to join militias that were accused of helping suppress Shiite and Kurdish revolts after the 1991 Gulf War.

A similar reconciliation law was floated late last year, but it languished in parliament and was not pressed by al-Maliki, who was then embroiled in a dispute with Washington over setting benchmarks for his government to enact political reforms.

But with the U.S.-Iraqi agreement to launch the security crackdown in Baghdad, in what many see as a last-ditch effort to quell sectarian violence, the Americans are believed to have convinced al-Maliki that he must meet benchmarks. Some of his aides said he had been given until June 30 to act or face the withdrawal of U.S. backing.

The Bush administration has been insisting that Iraq's government win parliamentary approval not only for the reconciliation measure, but also a new law that would share revenues from the country's oil fields fairly among the nation's various ethnic and religious communities.

The Americans also are insisting that a date be set quickly for regional elections and that the government push forward with long-stalled constitutional amendments that would give Sunnis a greater role in running the country.

All are designed to appease Sunni Arabs in a bid to blunt the insurgency and return members of the minority to the political process, which is considered a key to a quicker withdrawal of U.S. forces.

AP  

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