World

Fallujah: Enemy With Many Faces

April 23, 2004 / 4:42 PM EDT / CBS/AP

With a confrontation looming, Marines outside Fallujah are trying to distinguish between hard-core militants who will fight to the death and former Iraqi military officers who might lay down arms, a commander says.

Commanders say guerrillas in the besieged city of have only days to hand over their heavy weapons or face a renewed American attack. But so far, the militants have turned in mainly dud rockets, rusty mortar shells and grenades labeled "inert."

One general says the battle could be "costly" if Marines have to launch a new assault. Marines have again stopped the return of families to Fallujah to limit civilian casualties.

Meanwhile, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq announced an easing of the purge of members of Saddam Hussein's disbanded party that will allow thousands of former Baathists to return to positions in the military and the government bureaucracy.

The announcement represented a backing down from a centerpiece of U.S. policy in Iraq after Saddam's fall — the dissolution of the Baath Party and military that were key tools of repression by the former regime. U.S. officials say the easing will still keep Baathists who committed crimes out of government.

In other developments:

South, senior officers say any order to attack Najaf — where coalition troops are facing off with a radical Shiite cleric's army — would be made at the highest levels of government — an indication President Bush may have the final word.

The cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, warned Friday of suicide attacks if the U.S. moves in. Militiamen led by al-Sadr clashed with Polish-led coalition troops in the holy city of Karbala earlier Friday.

The U.N. human rights chief said Friday he would send a team of experts to check on the human rights situation in Iraq because the world body has stopped its monitoring of the country.

The Iraqi government that will take over on June 30 will not have the authority to give orders to U.S. and other coalition troops or to change any laws, Bush administration officials told The New York Times.

The death toll in a series of suicide bombings that targeted police stations and the police academy in the southern city of Basra rose to 74, with more than 160 people wounded, the U.S.-led coalition said Friday. The statement did not say whether the toll rose due to a more precise counting or if some of the wounded had died.

In the Karbala attack, militiamen attacked a military convoy made up of Polish, Bulgarian, Lithuanian and Latvian soldiers near city hall in the center of town around the time of weekly Muslim prayers, said Lt. Col. Robert Strzelecki, spokesman for Camp Babylon, the main Polish base. Gunmen and soldiers exchanged fire.

One soldier was injured and taken to a military hospital for treatment, but further details were not immediately available.

Al-Sadr's militia rose up across the south at the beginning of April, taking control of several cities and engaging in bloody battles with coalition forces in the region.

Over the past week the militiamen have returned police stations in Karbala, Kufa and Najaf to Iraqi authorities, but gunmen continue to roam the streets and have occasionally fired on coalition troops.

Mortar attacks on coalition bases throughout south-central Iraq — including those in Karbala, Najaf and Hillah — have grown more frequent in recent weeks.

L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, announced the new policy on Baathists in a national address Friday night on al-Iraqiya, a U.S.-funded television station.

The change comes during the bloodiest month since the U.S. occupation began, with U.S. forces fighting Sunni Muslim insurgents in the center of the country and Shiite militiamen in the south.

More military officers who served in Saddam's army but have clean records will be allowed to join the new army being constructed from scratch by the U.S.-led coalition, Bremer said.

Bremer also said teachers and professors who did not use their positions to harm Iraqis will be allowed to return. Bremer's speech was broadcast with an Arabic voiceover. A transcript of his remarks in English was not immediately available.

Only alleged criminals, expected to face trials, will remain automatically excluded along with the top four levels of Saddam's Baath party and the three most senior levels of ministries of the fallen leader's government, an official of the U.S.-led coalition had said in a telephone interview Thursday from Baghdad.

But other Iraqis who have been banned, including 14,000 discharged school teachers, will get their jobs back if they can make the case that they were party members in name only, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Saddam's Baathist party was in power for some 34 years and controlled almost all sectors of society. Teachers, civil servants and army officers were often required to join the party. Some 1.5 million of Iraq's 24 million people are believed to have been party members.

The U.S. decision to disband the military and the Baath after Saddam's fall was at first popular. But it led to widespread unemployment, especially among the Sunni minority that formed the core of Saddam's regime, some of whom joined the ranks of the anti-U.S. insurgency, Iraqis and U.S. commanders say.

The heavy-handed push of Baathists out of government positions also cost the country needed expertise at a time when it is trying to rebuild. U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi criticized the de-Baathification program last week, saying, "It is difficult to understand that thousands upon thousands … of professionals sorely needed in the country have been dismissed."

Most Iraqi leaders welcomed the change announced Friday, saying the strong purge was a mistake from the start and fueled the anti-U.S. insurgency.

The move, however, is likely to face opposition, especially among Kurds and Shiites who were brutally suppressed by Saddam's Baath Party and welcomed the purge.