Bill Designed to Reinstate Many Saddam
Followers Going to Parliament
The Associated Press
Monday, March 26, 2007
BAGHDAD: Iraq's prime minister
and president will introduce a bill in parliament as early as Tuesday that
allows former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party — including members of the
feared security apparatus and paramilitary forces — to return to government jobs
and join the military, Iraqi officials said.
The measure — long demanded by the U.S. to
appease Iraq's Sunni Arabs — provides for a three-month challenge period after
which Saddam's ex-followers would be immune.
The measure goes to parliament under the names
of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, and President Jalal Talabani, a
Kurd. Shiites and Kurds make up nearly 80 percent of Iraq's population and both
were severely oppressed by Saddam's largely Sunni regime.
"We present the draft law of Accountability and
Justice to parliament to build an Iraq that is accessible to all Iraqis
determined to build a new, democratic Iraq that is far from sectarianism,
racism, tyranny, discrimination, exclusion and disenfranchisement," al-Maliki
and Talabani said in a joint statement released late Monday.
The statement 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. But the Iraqi officials said the
measure could reach the floor of the legislature as early as Tuesday in an
attempt to blunt predicted criticism from an Arab League summit when it meets
later this week in Saudi Arabia. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity
because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
The new law, if passed, would supersede what
had been known in post-Saddam Iraq as de-Baathification, the process under which
senior members of the former leader's Baath Party had been ejected from
government and military positions. That was done under an edict from U.S.
administrator L. Paul Bremer, 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 insurgency that has proven so deadly to
American forces over the past four years is believed to have coalesced around
those dismissed military men.
Ali al-Lami, a Shiite who is chairman of the
commission running existing de-Baathification process, said he had seen the
draft law and called it unconstitutional and charged that it was written by U.S.
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who finished his tour in Iraq on Monday and has
left the country.
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."
Al-Lami said the draft law was unconstitutional
because it would allow "for the reinstatement of employees of Saddam's security
agencies and paramilitary forces."
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 U.S. allies Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and Jordan — were preparing sharp criticism of the Shiite-dominated
al-Maliki government for its failure to include Sunnis.
Al-Maliki "fears the Arabs will be trying to
undermine this government," Taqi said.
Talabani, the president, was to be at the Arab
summit and having the draft law in hand was seen as strengthening his ability to
rebutt Arab complaints.
Al-Lami, the commission chief who read portions
of the draft law to The Associated Press, 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 explained, Iraqi citizens
will have three months to challenge the reinstatement of Baathists. If there are
no challenges, the reinstated former party member is immune henceforward.
He said a special tribunal would be established
to study any challenges that are lodged and would have three months to make a
ruling, which could not be appealed.
Any former Baathist who is successfully
challenged would still be given a pension as if legitimately retired from the
job held when Saddam was ousted.
About 1.5 million of Iraq's 27 million people
belonged to the Baath party — formally known as the Baath Arab Socialist Party.
Most said they joined for professional, not ideological, reasons.
Career advancement, university enrollment and
specialized medical care depended on party membership. However, 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.
Late last year, an earlier draft law was
floated that would have enabled thousands of former Baath party members to win
back their jobs. It had languished in parliament and was not pressed by al-Maliki,
who was then embroiled in a dispute with the Americans over benchmarks they
sought to impose upon his government for political reform.
But with the U.S.-Iraqi agreement to launch the
ongoing security crackdown in Baghdad, in a what many see as a last-ditch effort
to quell overwhelming sectarian violence, the Americans are believed to have
convinced al-Maliki that he must meet the 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
his government win parliamentary approval not only for the reconciliation
measure, but also a new oil law that shares revenues fairly nationwide. 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.
All four measures are designed to appease
Sunnis in a bid to blunt the insurgency and return members of the minority sect
to the political process, a key to a quicker withdrawal of American forces.
