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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Saddam loyalists' jobs in jeopardy |
| 2005-05-10 |
| Abu Jaafar pulls out one of the dozens of files piled on his desk and leafs through evidence that a Finance Ministry employee once served in Saddam Hussein's notorious intelligence agency. Snapping the file shut, he pronounces his verdict: "This man should be fired." The office in charge of removing senior members of Saddam's Baath party from state institutions has kicked back into gear under the new government made up largely of Shiite Arabs and Kurds, who were savagely repressed by the former regime. Former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite and ex-Baathist, was never a strong supporter of the U.S.-imposed ban on hiring members of the party, whose 35 years in power were some of the darkest in Iraq's history. Allawi argued that Iraq's new democratic institutions need the expertise of those who served the former regime, and reportedly brought many Baathists back into government and the security forces. After the United States handed back sovereignty to Iraqis last June, Allawi tried to shut down the Supreme National Commission for de-Baathification, but was overruled, according to commission Executive Director Ali al-Lami. Work picked up again for Lami and his staff when Iraq's new Shiite prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, started forming a government after the country's first democratic parliamentary elections Jan. 30. "After the elections . . . it was agreed to reactivate the process of removing Baath party members from state institutions," Lami said in an interview. Parliament set up a 12-member committee Sunday to oversee the commission's work. U.S. officials have cautioned against a wholesale purge of Iraq's government and security forces at a time when they face an increasingly complex and deadly insurgency, warning it could further antagonize the disaffected Sunni Arab minority believed to be driving the insurgency. But Lami said the ban applies only to those who served in the party's upper echelons, an estimated 65,000 people. The United States dissolved and banned the Baath party in May 2003, a month after toppling Saddam, but later softened its stance, inviting former high-level officers from the disbanded military to join the security forces. The former top U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, also allowed thousands of teachers who were Baathists to return to work. About 35,000 senior Baathists lost their jobs in the eight months after the policy took effect, but 16,000 of them appealed and returned to their posts, Lami said. The tough stance adopted by Shiite leaders and their Kurdish allies against those with ties to Saddam's regime was one of the main issues that held up formation of Jaafari's government until April 28. Jaafari asked representatives of Iraq's major ethnic and religious groups to submit candidates for his Cabinet. But many of the names, particularly those from the Sunni minority that dominated under Saddam, were sent to the de-Baathification commission for vetting. Sunni hard-liners say the ban was used to reject most of their candidates, and the new government's most senior Sunni member, Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer, skipped the swearing-in ceremony in protest. In the end, seven Sunnis joined the Cabinet, but Jaafari's choice for human rights minister turned down the job, saying he didn't want to be a token appointee. An estimated 1.5 million of Iraq's 26 million people belonged to the Baath party, formally known as the Baath Arab Socialist Party, at the time of Saddam's fall, but most say they joined for practical reasons. Membership was needed for career advancement, to secure places at prestigious colleges, or to get specialized medical care. You made your choices, now you have to live with the consequences. Welcome to the real world. |
| Posted by:phil_b |