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Iraq: Saddam-era officials to get gov't
jobs back
4.2.2008
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February 4, 2008
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq’s presidency council
issued a law Sunday that will allow thousands of
Saddam Hussein-era officials to reclaim government
jobs, a measure aimed at mending deep fissures
between minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds and the
majority Shiites.
The law, passed by parliament Jan. 12, is the first
of 18 key U.S.-set benchmarks to become law after
months of bitter debate.
But it was issued without the signature of the Sunni
vice president, and the presidency council cited
reservations and plans to seek changes in the bill,
clouding hopes it will encourage reconciliation.
Iraq’s Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi
objected to provisions in the new law that would
pension off 7,000 low-level members of Saddam
Hussein’s former secret police and intelligence
agents who still worked in Iraq’s security
apparatus. Top al-Hashemi aides also said he wanted
decisions on exceptions to the law to be handled by
the presidency council rather than parliament as the
law currently requires.
The presidential council, which also includes
President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Vice President
Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite, issued the law 10 days
after receiving it for consideration. But the panel
expressed concern “over some items that would hamper
the national reconciliation project,”www.ekurd.net
pointing to the clause
that would “lead to the exclusion of employees with
high qualifications of which Iraqi is in dire need.”
Legislators also stressed the law would protect
people in the future from atrocities like those
committed by Saddam Hussein and to ensure those who
were damaged by his Sunni-dominated regime had a
means of seeking compensation.
The law included an explanation that it was passed
‘‘due to the severe suffering of the Iraqi people
for 35 years during which they were subjected to the
ugliest forms of repression, oppression and
deprivation at the hands of the most criminal of
regimes.’’
In an apparent face-saving gesture to al-Hashemi,
Talabani and Abdul-Mahdi promised they would agree
to send amendments back to parliament. U.S.
officials have pinned great hopes on the measure and
its passage by parliament was welcomed with fanfare
by President Bush as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s
U.S.-backed government has been heavily criticized
for failing to take advantage of a recent lull in
violence to make political progress.
Many Sunnis in Iraq were skeptical.
Abu Wisam, 51, a former employee in the Ministry of
Higher Education who was sacked in late 2005,
complained the law continued to emphasize on
punishing past regime members found guilty of
crimes.
‘‘This law brings nothing new. It still chases
Baathists because of past events. The government
should be busy fighting current criminals and
corruption instead of settling old scores with us,’’www.ekurd.net
said Wisam, who
currently owns a computer store in Baghdad’s
predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Amariyah.
‘‘I am not willing to go back to my work because I
fear assassination,’’ he added. ‘‘Government
institutions are controlled by anti-Baathist people.
I do not expect good from a law that was written and
will be implemented by anti-Baathists.’’
Still, the move was seen as a key step in the
reconciliation process. The decision to outlaw the
Baath party was the first official act of L. Paul
Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority, and along
with his order to disband the Iraqi army has been
widely blamed for setting in motion the Sunni
insurgency in the fall of 2003.
AP
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