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Iraq to open more important jobs to former Baathists

Former members of late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's Baath Party who lost their jobs in the wake of the 2003 invasion will be allowed to take up posts in the government and security forces under a new law designed to foster reconciliation between Iraq's Shiite and Sunni Arabs.

The US has been putting intense pressure on the Shiite-led government to meet a series of benchmarks designed to bring Iraq's once all-powerful Sunni Arabs back into the fold and take the sting out of the insurgency, which is raging in many Sunni areas of the capital and beyond.

Leading Sunni figures hope the bill will also encourage the return to Iraq of thousands of Sunnis who have fled abroad since 2003. Under the new legislation, which will be sent to parliament by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Sunni Kurd, and Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki, a Shiite Arab, those who do not find new employment will be eligible for state pensions.

The bill covers Baath Party members who served in Saddam's civil service and military organizations. But it excludes Baathists who have been charged with or are wanted for crimes committed under the former regime. According to the law, there would be a three-month challenge period after which former Baath Party loyalists would be immune from legal punishment for their actions under Saddam.

Saleh al Mutlaq, a leading Sunni politician who has links to the former Baath Party, said he backed the new law.

"It is a belated opportunity to correct the mistakes made by Paul Bremer," he said.

In May 2003, US administrator Paul Bremer sacked the army and all civil servants and officials above the Baath Party's lowest levels. Critics of this so-called de-Baathification process say it has been one of the main factors in Iraq's current turmoil.

"You have to understand how much we feared the Baath Party," said one Shiite government official.

But, he acknowledged: "The wholesale removal of the pillars of Iraq's administrative and security structures paralyzed institutions and created half a million discontented and jobless people, many of them Sunni."
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