BAGHDAD, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Iraq's parliament passed a long-awaited measure on Saturday to ease restrictions on members of former leader Saddam Hussein's Baath party returning to public life.

Washington has been pressing Iraq's Shi'ite Islamist-led government to pass the de-Baathification law in an effort to draw the minority Sunni Arab community that held sway under Saddam closer into the political process.

Thousands of Sunnis were fired from government jobs after Saddam was toppled in the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, fuelling a long-running insurgency against Iraq's new Shi'ite rulers and U.S. forces.

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