Iraqi draft law would reinstate most ex-Baathists
Source: Reuters
BAGHDAD, Nov 7 (Reuters) - A committee set up by U.S. authorities after the invasion of Iraq to purge former Baath Party officials from public life will recommend allowing most of them to take back their jobs, a senior official said on Tuesday. Concerned about the marginalisation of Saddam Hussein's once dominant Sunni Arab minority, Washington has been pressing the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government to reform the De-Baathification Committee to transform it into what U.S. officials have called "an accountability and reconciliation programme". Ali Faysal al-Lami, executive director of the committee, said a draft amendment to the law would be presented to parliament, reducing the number of ex-Baathists excluded from public life from 30,000 to just 1,500 senior officials. "We are going to deliver these proposals to parliament in a few days," Lami told Reuters. The move is a long-standing demand of Sunni Arab leaders and comes after an Iraqi court sentenced Saddam on Sunday to hang for crimes against humanity. The committee was set up under U.S. military rule in 2003 to purge officials from Saddam's Baath Party. Critics complain too many people were affected, including vital bureaucrats and many who joined the party from necessity rather than conviction. Disenchantment among Sunni Arabs has fuelled the insurgency against U.S.-forces and the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, threatening to pitch Iraq into civil war. Lami said that if parliament approved the draft amendment, all but the 1,500 most senior former Baath Party officials would be allowed either to return to their jobs or to take retirement.
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