BAGHDAD, Feb. 3, 2008
Iraq OKs Rehiring Baath Party Members
1st Of 18 Benchmarks Met: Elsewhere, U.S. Soldier Dies, Raising Toll To 3,944
-
-
The law allowing lower-level party members who supported Saddam Hussein to be rehired in government positions is the first of 18 pieces of benchmark legislation demanded by the Bush administration to promote reconciliation. (CBS)
-
Pallbearers carry the casket of Army Sgt. Jon M. Schoolcraft III during funeral service at Wapakoneta High School in Wapakoneta, Ohio on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2008. Schoolcraft was killed during his second tour of duty in Iraq. (AP/N. Lauron, Columbus Dispatch)
-
-
Play CBS Video Video Dual Baghdad Suicide Attacks More than 50 people died after a pair of suicide attacks by female bombers. The violence occurred as Baghdad residents said they felt the safest since the Iraq war began. Mark Strassmann reports.
-
Video Iraqi Policewomen Subjugated After bombs were strapped to mentally-disabled Iraqi women in a deadly attack, some say that such tragedies could be avoided if Iraq was more receptive to female police officers. Jeff Glor reports.
-
Photo Essay Baghdad Pet Bazaar Blasts Two female bombers strike in coordinated attack killing more than 70 people.
-
Interactive Battle For Iraq The government, the insurgency, key players, background and photos.
The measure was thought to affect about 38,000 former members of Saddam Hussein's ruling political apparatus, giving them a chance to go back to government jobs. It would also allow those who have reached retirement age to claim government pensions.
It became law without the signature of the Sunni representative on the three-member presidency council because the constitution requires the body to act within 10 days after the panel received the law, according to Iraq's constitution.
Iraq's Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi objected to provisions in the law that would have pensioned off 7,000 members of Saddam's former secret police and intelligence agents who still worked in Iraq's security apparatus.
The law is the first of 18 pieces of benchmark legislation demanded by the Bush administration to promote reconciliation among Iraq's Sunni and Shiite Arab communities and the large Kurdish minority.
Other draft legislation, including measures to divvy up the country's vast oil wealth, amend the constitution and define rules for new provincial elections.
The so-called de-Baathification law was passed by the 275-member parliament on Jan. 12. The presidency council announced it had issued the legislation in a statement on Sunday.
In Other Developments:
Such neighborhood watch groups - also known as Awakening Councils, Concerned Local Citizens or the Sons of Iraq - are local men recruited by U.S. officers to help provide security and rebuild Iraqi towns. They are comprised mostly of Sunni fighters - some of whom once fought against U.S. and Iraqi forces - who have now joined the Americans in trying to oust al Qaeda from their own enclaves.
The groups, believed to be more than 70,000-strong across the country, have been credited by U.S. commanders as being instrumental in what they say is a nearly 60 percent reduction in violence in the last six months. It also was affected by the dispatch of additional U.S. troops and a six-month cease-fire declared in August by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia.
But Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has been deeply uneasy about the potential for the Sunni fighters - now better organized and armed - to switch sides again, posing a threat to stability and the Shiite domination that followed the ouster of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Add a Comment See all 25 Comments
- Anyone figure out yet why the number of civilian contractors in both Iraq & Afaganistan outnumber American uniformed forces ?????
Posted by j-whitman at 01:41 PM : Feb 03, 2008
It is the money... - Reply to this comment
- Hey, speaking of Iraq...
What do you think ever happened to those life sized poster/pictures of Jenna and Barbara Bush that Saddam''s sons Udai and Qussay had plastered up on their wall? Those might fetch some big bucks on eBay! - Reply to this comment
- I too would certainly like to hear Mr. Obama articulate at least one thing he thinks he can do to FIX this country. We don''t need CHANGE, and we already have HOPE!
I have listened to every word from all these candidates and I have yet to hear what his real stance is on anything!!! - Reply to this comment
- Posted by grazinggoat
Your sentiment is admirable, but I feel I must caution you, and remind you that we have heard such promises before.
It is time now for some specifics on just what changes Mr. Obama intends, because I have not yet heard anything that suggests that Mr. Obama will do little more than try to put band aids on gaping machete wounds, and I believe that if the powers that be thought that Mr. Obama really intended to make the changes necessary to save America, he would be dead already, so as cold as it sounds, we need those ideas out there and in discussion now, so that if he is "silenced" in whatever way, at least we know what was supposed to happen, and can choose whoever is closest to those ideas. - Reply to this comment
- CBS News: ''''Obama has also seen his support among women rise by 11 percentage points, and he now trails Clinton by only 7 percentage points among that group. He trails Clinton narrowly among Democrats but leads her among independent voters by 13 percentage points. ''''
-What a GIANT Leap this guy is going... Can''''t but be proud of such realization. We need this guy, who is gonna make History in America, being the first African-American president of the USA. His integrity, his dignity, his time spent as civil servant, his involvement as street-level community organizer, gives this guy the legitimacy of claiming REAL political experience, connected directly to the PEOPLE AND THEIR NEEDS...
-Hilary cannot claim the community-level involvement. She spent her life in LUSH and LUXURY circles, getting compensated for what she could lobby for the deep-pockets who supported her.
-Obama is advocating the CHANGE for a newer foreign policies, whereas Hilary is vowing the same same same what Walking-Liar has done dragging our country in the worst debt ever USA had in recent History. She is pro-war. Obama has vowed to bring the troops home as soon as he''''s elected president. Obama will make a CHANGE in foreign policies. He will talk and resolve problems with our foes... OBAMA WILL NOT STEAL AMERICA... and YES WE CAN! - Reply to this comment
- After having spent the last two hours drafting my response to your CBS Reports'' program that aired this evening, I was frustrated to find the comments page closed. I wish I had known this before I went on this fool%u2019s errand. This is the closest to an on topic open comments forum available on your site. If you can find a forum more appropriate to my comments, please feel free to move them to that site. What would really be appreciated would be for you to reopen the original forum for the CBS Reports story %u201CFathers, Sons and Brothers, A report on members of the Iowa National Guard who are serving in Iraq and their families%u201D (cont.)
- Reply to this comment
- I have just finished viewing the rebroadcast of your CBS Reports %u201CFathers, Sons and Brothers, A report on members of the Iowa National Guard who are serving in Iraq and their families%u201D on my local KRCG affiliate here in Missouri. Viewing these pieces, so sympathetic to our forces, literally tears me in half emotionally.
Let me try to explain. As you noted, this war is extremely controversial, both at home and among those fighting in Iraq. There were a number of things I found fault with in this program in particular and in the general press coverage of the war and the reporting of the controversy...(cont.) - Reply to this comment
- My heart goes out to the families of the soldiers. They are the only truly innocent Americans in this whole mess. I have heard wife after wife say that they were not enthusiastic about their spouses, siblings fathers or children serving in this war, but it was the decision largely of the one serving to enter the war. I think, to some extent, these soldiers had no idea of what the real consequences would be for their uninformed decision. I view them somewhat as naove lambs led to a slaughter. They enlisted, trusting that the cause was noble and that the commanders (including the commander in chief) were honorable men of their word. These ideas seem so ludicrous now. For these who actually believed the lies and believed in the honor of their commander in chief, the war in time will come only to represent a kind of innocence lost. Now sadly many family members on the home front and many serving are beginning to awaken to the sad fact that they have been duped. The really sad realization that still has not fully hit is that they are engaged in an illegal enterprise, whose purposes have nothing to do with the spread of democracy or the national security of the United States...
- Reply to this comment
- ...On the contrary, their service represents one of the greatest threats to the peace of the world since Germany%u2019s expansionist dreams that culminated in WWII. I think this realization has penetrated to some level because most servicemen become extremely defensive and even angry when confronted with these facts. Many family members react similarly. Who can really blame them? Is it possible to think of your fair-haired son or daughter whom you raised to be moral people as a war criminal? By any objective standards of international law and even our own Constitution, the title must stand. It sickens me to look at the guileless faces of our young soldiers and see them in the same light as I used to view Hitler%u2019s beautiful, blond SS officers. These soldiers cannot even say they were drafted as in Vietnam. They %u201Cvolunteered%u201D as rational free agents and so must bear the full moral responsibility for this war. I think I can understand why your producers might regard this little addendum to be a little too far off topic for a sentimental piece about the suffering of the families of the Iowa National Guard and probably not in very taste as well. The only problem is I hardly ever see the subject of the legality and the morality of the war brought up at all in any context. I do not watch a lot of television, so I am willing to stand corrected...
- Reply to this comment
- Certainly there is no lack of inquiry as to the conduct of the war. Some of these questions were even asked in this episode. Of course there are a lot of soldiers, voters and politicians who object to the war on strictly technical/strategic grounds. I do not understand why do you not give any voice to those who speak to the real issue: This war is illegal, immoral and was based entirely on lies, manipulation and fraud. One of the solders in the show bemoaned the fact that the American people were behind this war in the beginning and are now turning against it. I wish you would not let a statement that is the product of an obviously misinformed combat addled person stand so completely unchallenged. There were many, many Americans who opposed this war, not just on a popular level unparallel for any impending conflict in our history, but also among qualified mideast experts and in the intelligence community as well. It is not our fault that CBS, among others, chose not to report these facts. True many now, including a majority of Americans, have turned against this war. Unfortunately the objections are largely for the wrong reasons. One does not oppose a burglary simply because the culprit got caught bungling the job. I suppose it would have been OK as long as he gotten away with it?
- Reply to this comment
Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.
