Iraqis Agree To Rehire Saddam Supporters

(AP)  Iraq's parliament adopted legislation Saturday on the reinstatement of thousands of former supporters of Saddam Hussein's Baath party to government jobs, a key benchmark sought by the United States as a step toward easing sectarian tensions.

The bill was approved by a unanimous show of hands on each of the law's 30 clauses. Titled the Accountability and Justice law, it seeks to relax restrictions on the rights of members of the now-dissolved Baath party to fill government posts.

It is also designed to reinstate thousands of Baathists dismissed from government jobs after the 2003 U.S. invasion - a decision that deepened sectarian tensions between Iraq's majority Shiites and the once-dominant Sunni Arabs, who believed the firings targeted their community.

The strict implementation of so-called de-Baathification rules also meant that many senior bureaucrats who knew how to run ministries, university departments and state companies ended up unemployed in a country where 35 years of Baath party rule and extensive government involvement in the economy had left tens of thousands of party members in key positions.

That, coupled with the disbanding of the Iraqi army, threw tens of thousands of people out of work at a critical time in Iraq's history and fueled the burgeoning Sunni insurgency.

The Bush administration initially promoted de-Baathification but later claimed that Iraqi authorities went beyond even what the Americans had contemplated to keep Saddam's supporters out of important jobs.

With the Sunni insurgency raging and political leaders making little progress in reconciling Iraq's Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities, the Americans switched positions and urged the dismantling of de-Baathification laws.

Later, enacting and implementing legislation reinstating the fired Baath supporters became one of 18 so-called benchmark issues the U.S. sought as measures for progress in national reconciliation.

The legislation can become law only when approved by Iraq's presidential council. The council, comprised of Iraq's president and two vice presidents, is expected to ratify the measure.

The draft law approved Saturday is not a blanket approval for all former Baathists to take government jobs.

The law will allow low-ranking Baathists not involved in past crimes against Iraqis to go back to their jobs. High-ranking Baathists will be sent to compulsory retirement and those involved in crimes will stand trial, though their families will still have the right to pension.

The Baathists who were members in Saddam's security agencies must retire - except for members of Fidayeen Saddam, a feared militia formed by Saddam's eldest son, Oday. They will be entitled to nothing.

U.S. Military Seeks To Reclaim Insurgent Areas

A U.S.-led military offensive, meanwhile, sought to reclaim control of former insurgent-held areas around Baghdad.

In the massive raid south of the capital, two B1-B bombers and four F-16 fighter jets dropped 48 precision-guided bombs on 47 targets, U.S. Air Force Col. Peter Donnelly, commander of the 18th Expeditionary Air Support Operations Group, told reporters.

The targets consisted mainly of weapons caches and powerful roadside bombs buried deep underground - key defensive elements for al Qaeda in Iraq insurgents, said Donnelly and Army Col. Terry Ferrell, commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division.

Extremists were believed to have controlled Arab Jabour, a Sunni district lined with citrus groves, but Ferrell said "the predominant number" have now fled to the southwest since his troops' operations began.

"We're moving into areas where coalition forces have not been in months or years in some cases," Ferrell told reporters via a video link, adding that insurgents "had established a deliberate defensive belt to deny our movement in the area."

Ferrell said the southwest is "where we take this fight to next. It is all about fighting the enemy where the enemy wants to go."

As U.S. and Iraqi ground forces move through areas to push out insurgents, Ferrell said members of the Awakening Council movement will be relied upon to stabilize the region and maintain security.

It was those Sunni fighters, Ferrell said, who largely provided the intelligence that allowed U.S. forces to locate the targets destroyed in Thursday's bombing.

Despite the massive size of the air strikes, Donnelly said that - to the military's knowledge - no civilians were killed. That could not immediately be independently confirmed. He added that the targeting of three targets was called off because unmanned surveillance planes showed civilians in those areas.

Donnelly said it wasn't yet known how many insurgents were killed in the attacks.

But Mustapha Kamil Shibeeb al-Jibouri, leader of Arab Jabour's Awakening Council, said the air strikes killed at least 21 al Qaeda militants including a group leader.

"Their bodies are still in the area. They have not been evacuated yet," he told The Associated Press.

Separately, the military announced that Faleh Mansour Hussain, the Sunni chairman of the Yarmouk Neighborhood Council in Baghdad, was killed in a car bombing Tuesday.

"Attacks on civilians like this are done by those who are trying to prevent the peace and stability Iraqi citizens deserve," said military spokesman Maj. J. Frank Garcia.
By Qassim Abdul-Zahra
© MVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

[prinzowhales]

Michaelt332--Bush says we could be there for another 10 years...McCain says one hundred would not upset him...this, whether the coke-addled circuitry of the Chimp''s brain registers it or not is admission that the surge did not work!!...and, that Iraqification will never work!!

[hungry1968]

If Iraq was truly a democracy, as the Bush regime claims, the baathists wouldn''t have been fired / prohibited from holding these positions in the first place.

[excoachken]

Once again, Democracy takes a Baath.......... or at least a cold shower!

[alphaa10-2009]

In 30,000 extra US troops, Bush and his boosters believe they have found the magic potion bringing "victory" in Iraq. But the nagging question remains-- why, oh why, are we still there?

Many already suspect the obvious. Even before Bush did his "Mission Accomplished" PR stunt May 2, 2003, on a carrier safely off San Diego-- an ocean away, but it would have to do-- there were other objectives already in play as the first US tanks hit Baghdad.

Advance US units were targeted at the Iraqi oil ministry building, and promptly set up barricades and razor wire-- all this before the city, itself, was secured. Yet, after four years more of chaos and ham-handed US attempts to whip up a pastiche of legitimacy to its invasion, the Iraqis still balk at the idea of signing away their oil assets to certain foreign oil companies.

The latest word on this siege by Bush of the Iraqi legislative assembly is Bush threatens to withhold most US aid if Iraq does not open its oil fields to his Big Oil buddies.

Hoping desperately to beat the game clock of the US general election, Bush and boosters are all set to claim the war is won, that the Sunnis and Shia are safely partitioned off into mutually-hostile areas, and as long as Cheney keeps sending checks to Sunni jihadist groups, things will stay that way...

Campaign finance being the costly thing it is, this is quid pro quo. Also known as the cost of doing business at the expense of the American people.

[alphaa10-2009]

"Re-Baathification" is Cheney''s belated recognition only de facto partition of the country assures stability-- defined as a lower body count to the country''s still very lethal civil war.

Cheney continues to arm and pay off various Sunni anti-Iran groups, and make Sunniland into even more of the armed camp it already is-- ready for the showdown with the Shia south when the opportunity presents.

Long-term, his policy aggravates, rather than soothes tensions, and guarantees the civil war will be even more vicious whenever possible. But if partitioning the country, even de facto, lets oil crews start to work the Iraqi fields again, Cheney is all for it.

To force the issue, Bush and Cheney are holding more US foreign aid over the heads of Iraqis, demanding its parliament ratify a giveaway of Iraqi petroleum to US/UK Big Oil.

"Now, if you Iraqis will just sign ... here... and here, why, we''ll be all done!"

[iceman_1960]

It is defeatist to assume the Iraqi government couldn"t handle the situation from this point.

It is a Welfare State Mentality to assume that the problems in Iraqi society can only be solved by direct intervention from the Federal Government in Washington.

Defeatism and a Welfare State Mentality are poor excuses to keep the American troops there.

[iceman_1960]

How could we lose the war now ?

If we left immediately, the Iraqi government wouuld simply stand up and crush the insurgents.

They"ve had more time to prepare than Russia did to turn back the German invasion.

And the insurgents aren"t exactly the Wehrmacht.

[iceman_1960]

Radical de-Baathification was a big mistake.

It led to the firing, for example, of school teachers whose only "crime" was that they had been forced to join the party.

The wiser heads in the Bush administration knew it was a mistake, but were overruled by the rigid ideologues.

[downtowner97]

If you had money and an education in Iraq, you were required to join the Baath party. It wasn''t about any beliefs these people had, it was a matter of survival. You couldn''t exactly say "no thanks". If we had left Saddam''s military and government agencies intact, the place wouldn''t have been looted, the power, water and phones would have stayed on, and there would have been order.

Imagine someone coming into this country and firing everyone with an education from every job in the country and telling them they couldn''t reapply.

[samthetvcat]

"dontbl1,Isn''''t de-baathification supposed to be about getting rid of Saddam''''s Baath party ???

Placing thousands of them back into government is the equivalent of De-Nazification putting Nazis back in charge."

Posted by j-whitman

If you consider the Baathists Nazis then doesn''t that lend justification to the idea that the invasion of Iraq was about liberation anyway so whether wmd''s existed or not was irrelevant?

As well, aren''t Baathists the Sunnis? So if Sunnis and Shiites were able to unanimously reach a compromise agreement, then doesn''t that fly in the face of the idea that the Iraqi ppl aren''t open to the idea of reconciliation when faced with the alternative of a bloodbath?

I thought the Democratic platform was that the pressure of withdrawal was always going to be needed to bring about political changes, which is what we''re starting to see now that Iraqi''s realize Bush''s gravy train is approaching the end of the line . . .