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BAGHDAD, May 6 -- Seeking to resuscitate Iraq's government, U.S. occupation authorities have decided to allow hundreds of Baath Party members to return to high-ranking ministerial and other posts, rankling many Iraqis who contend the new leadership should exclude officials from former president Saddam Hussein's repressive political apparatus.
Scores of Baath members have reclaimed jobs as managers, directors and directors-general, the most senior positions under ministers and their deputies, in several large ministries, including those responsible for trade, industry, oil, irrigation, health and education. Numerous Baathists also have been welcomed back to the top ranks of the national police force, which the U.S. administration authorized to resume operations Sunday to curb lawlessness on the streets of Baghdad and other large cities.
In some cases, even those at the top have Baath credentials. Baghdad's new police chief, Gen. Hamid Othman, had previously been the chief -- a post that required party membership. The acting minister of industry, Ahmed Rashid Gailini, said in an interview that he, too, was a party member, although at "a very low rank." Others in the ministry, including at least one director-general, held more significant posts in the party leadership, according to ministry employees.
U.S. officials said the only Baath members automatically disqualified are the 55 senior officials in Hussein's government deemed most wanted by the United States, as well as those believed to have been involved in human-rights violations or terrorism. Rank-and-file party members and mid-level officials "are free to go back to their jobs so long as we don't find blood on their hands," a senior U.S. official said.
Dealing with the estimated 2 million people who were Baath Party members has emerged as a controversial and complicated aspect of the postwar reconstruction. Many Iraqis, particularly those leading formerly exiled political groups opposed to Hussein, want Baathists to be scrutinized before they are permitted to reclaim high-level jobs, in the way former Nazis were vetted in postwar Germany.
Iraqi opposition leaders contend that including Baathists without appropriate checks could invite corruption and rile those who were persecuted by the party. But U.S. officials insist that preventing former party members from returning to work until they are screened would delay efforts to restart crucial government services.
Under Hussein, almost every government official of high or medium rank had to be a party member, including many technocrats on whom the U.S. administration is depending to get ministries running again.
"If we took all the party members and told them to sit at home, basically everything would stop," the senior official said.
The official maintained that the former Baathists who have been working with the U.S. administration and others who have gone back to their jobs without objection from U.S. authorities were those who joined the party "by necessity," meaning they signed up to advance their careers.
For U.S. administrators here, it is easier in many ways to interact with Baathist officials than with the Shiite Muslim clerics and tribal sheiks who have sought to establish themselves as power brokers in postwar Iraq. The party's founding ideology promoted secular, modern Arabism. Many of Iraq's best-educated people were members. Many members speak English, dress in business suits and possess diplomas from Western universities.
"You start working with whoever is good at delivering services and doing a good job," said Ron Johnson, senior vice president of the nonprofit Research Triangle Institute, a North Carolina company that received a $7.9 million U.S. Agency for International Development grant to promote Iraqi participation in reconstruction. "You just have to start with whoever is there."
Johnson said some Baath Party officials will prove acceptable to Iraqis, just as former Soviet Communist Party members took roles in government and industry after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Acknowledging that this is not a "pristine process," he said the process would evolve slowly. He also said the Americans are not always well-positioned to tell the good from the bad. "We don't carry a magic lens where a prism opens up and we say, 'Aha! A bad guy there!' " he said.
It is difficult to know exactly how many members the party had. Although officials in Hussein's government used to claim more than 5 million members among Iraq's 24 million people, Western analysts place the number of full-fledged members at about 2 million.
Timothy Carney, a retired U.S. ambassador to Sudan who is responsible for restarting the Industry Ministry, said that responsibility for determining who was too deeply involved in the party -- and weeding them out of government jobs -- would rest with Iraqis.
"Among the Iraqis, everyone knows who was either too bad or too Baath," he said. "The bottom line is the ultimate triage is going to be with the future Iraqi authority. If we are introduced to someone who was either active in the production or development of weapons of mass destruction or in terrorism or a major human-rights violator, we will remove those people as we become aware of them. Others will be subjected more to an Iraqi process than a coalition process."
That process began today outside a small, state-owned battery factory. Carney and top officials from the Industry Ministry, including acting minister Gailini, had gathered there for meetings because ministry headquarters in downtown Baghdad was gutted by looters. Dozens of angry employees from the Sawari Chemical Manufacturing Co., one of 52 enterprises owned by the ministry, held a demonstration to protest the reinstatement of the plant director, who they said was corrupt and too deeply involved in Baathist politics.
"We want an independent, non-Baathist, honest administrator who will look into the welfare of the employees," said Mohammed Sabah, 30, a lab technician, who was holding a cloth banner that read, "We demand new management free from the past regime's thugs."
Sabah and some of his colleagues said the director, Alaa Maher Douri, did not meet the U.S. test for disqualification, but they wanted him out regardless. "His hands may not have been bloody, but he was corrupt," said Ali Rifaat, 34, a plant technician.
Eventually, a representative of the workers was permitted inside to meet with Gailini, Carney and other ministry officials. Several hours later, after intense discussions in a large, green-hued office, Gailini announced that Douri and three other directors-general would be fired. Carney said he would support Gailini's decision and would deliver an edict to that effect from Jay M. Garner, the retired Army lieutenant general who is heading the postwar reconstruction effort.
"We listened to the picketers and we do agree with some of their reasons," Gailini said. But he warned that he would not be amenable to changing any director just because he was part of the party.
"There were many good people in the party -- many smart, technical people," he said. "We cannot exclude everyone."
Other Iraqis are not as charitable. "They kept us from getting jobs in the past, so what's wrong with us keeping them from getting jobs now?" asked Ahmed Karim, a bookseller.
Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, which opposed the Baath government from exile and now is taking a leading role in forming a new government, said Iraq must be "cleansed from Baathist ideas."
"They have been a criminal party," he said in a recent interview. "All of them are compromised. It's very difficult to find a Baathist who was not compromised."
Those who were active in the party insisted that the organization, which came to power in a 1968 coup, has disbanded. Party offices, once a feature of every neighborhood, have been taken over and turned into schools, community centers and clinics.
"We're finished," said Jabbar Kadhim, a director-general at the Industry Ministry who used to be a local party leader.
Many Iraqis, however, have not been as quick to reach that conclusion. There is a widespread fear here that former Baath leaders have transformed themselves into a clandestine group and will try to disrupt the new government.
"They got their start as an underground organization," said an aide to Chalabi. "They are still a threat."
But Kadhim said that would occur only if former Baathists were shut out of the new government.
"If the party members are treated in a normal manner and they are given their rights, there will be no more party," Kadhim said. "If not, the Baath Party will rise again."
Scores of Baath members have reclaimed jobs as managers, directors and directors-general, the most senior positions under ministers and their deputies, in several large ministries, including those responsible for trade, industry, oil, irrigation, health and education. Numerous Baathists also have been welcomed back to the top ranks of the national police force, which the U.S. administration authorized to resume operations Sunday to curb lawlessness on the streets of Baghdad and other large cities.
In some cases, even those at the top have Baath credentials. Baghdad's new police chief, Gen. Hamid Othman, had previously been the chief -- a post that required party membership. The acting minister of industry, Ahmed Rashid Gailini, said in an interview that he, too, was a party member, although at "a very low rank." Others in the ministry, including at least one director-general, held more significant posts in the party leadership, according to ministry employees.
U.S. officials said the only Baath members automatically disqualified are the 55 senior officials in Hussein's government deemed most wanted by the United States, as well as those believed to have been involved in human-rights violations or terrorism. Rank-and-file party members and mid-level officials "are free to go back to their jobs so long as we don't find blood on their hands," a senior U.S. official said.
Dealing with the estimated 2 million people who were Baath Party members has emerged as a controversial and complicated aspect of the postwar reconstruction. Many Iraqis, particularly those leading formerly exiled political groups opposed to Hussein, want Baathists to be scrutinized before they are permitted to reclaim high-level jobs, in the way former Nazis were vetted in postwar Germany.
Iraqi opposition leaders contend that including Baathists without appropriate checks could invite corruption and rile those who were persecuted by the party. But U.S. officials insist that preventing former party members from returning to work until they are screened would delay efforts to restart crucial government services.
Under Hussein, almost every government official of high or medium rank had to be a party member, including many technocrats on whom the U.S. administration is depending to get ministries running again.
"If we took all the party members and told them to sit at home, basically everything would stop," the senior official said.
The official maintained that the former Baathists who have been working with the U.S. administration and others who have gone back to their jobs without objection from U.S. authorities were those who joined the party "by necessity," meaning they signed up to advance their careers.
For U.S. administrators here, it is easier in many ways to interact with Baathist officials than with the Shiite Muslim clerics and tribal sheiks who have sought to establish themselves as power brokers in postwar Iraq. The party's founding ideology promoted secular, modern Arabism. Many of Iraq's best-educated people were members. Many members speak English, dress in business suits and possess diplomas from Western universities.
"You start working with whoever is good at delivering services and doing a good job," said Ron Johnson, senior vice president of the nonprofit Research Triangle Institute, a North Carolina company that received a $7.9 million U.S. Agency for International Development grant to promote Iraqi participation in reconstruction. "You just have to start with whoever is there."
Johnson said some Baath Party officials will prove acceptable to Iraqis, just as former Soviet Communist Party members took roles in government and industry after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Acknowledging that this is not a "pristine process," he said the process would evolve slowly. He also said the Americans are not always well-positioned to tell the good from the bad. "We don't carry a magic lens where a prism opens up and we say, 'Aha! A bad guy there!' " he said.
It is difficult to know exactly how many members the party had. Although officials in Hussein's government used to claim more than 5 million members among Iraq's 24 million people, Western analysts place the number of full-fledged members at about 2 million.
Timothy Carney, a retired U.S. ambassador to Sudan who is responsible for restarting the Industry Ministry, said that responsibility for determining who was too deeply involved in the party -- and weeding them out of government jobs -- would rest with Iraqis.
"Among the Iraqis, everyone knows who was either too bad or too Baath," he said. "The bottom line is the ultimate triage is going to be with the future Iraqi authority. If we are introduced to someone who was either active in the production or development of weapons of mass destruction or in terrorism or a major human-rights violator, we will remove those people as we become aware of them. Others will be subjected more to an Iraqi process than a coalition process."
That process began today outside a small, state-owned battery factory. Carney and top officials from the Industry Ministry, including acting minister Gailini, had gathered there for meetings because ministry headquarters in downtown Baghdad was gutted by looters. Dozens of angry employees from the Sawari Chemical Manufacturing Co., one of 52 enterprises owned by the ministry, held a demonstration to protest the reinstatement of the plant director, who they said was corrupt and too deeply involved in Baathist politics.
"We want an independent, non-Baathist, honest administrator who will look into the welfare of the employees," said Mohammed Sabah, 30, a lab technician, who was holding a cloth banner that read, "We demand new management free from the past regime's thugs."
Sabah and some of his colleagues said the director, Alaa Maher Douri, did not meet the U.S. test for disqualification, but they wanted him out regardless. "His hands may not have been bloody, but he was corrupt," said Ali Rifaat, 34, a plant technician.
Eventually, a representative of the workers was permitted inside to meet with Gailini, Carney and other ministry officials. Several hours later, after intense discussions in a large, green-hued office, Gailini announced that Douri and three other directors-general would be fired. Carney said he would support Gailini's decision and would deliver an edict to that effect from Jay M. Garner, the retired Army lieutenant general who is heading the postwar reconstruction effort.
"We listened to the picketers and we do agree with some of their reasons," Gailini said. But he warned that he would not be amenable to changing any director just because he was part of the party.
"There were many good people in the party -- many smart, technical people," he said. "We cannot exclude everyone."
Other Iraqis are not as charitable. "They kept us from getting jobs in the past, so what's wrong with us keeping them from getting jobs now?" asked Ahmed Karim, a bookseller.
Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, which opposed the Baath government from exile and now is taking a leading role in forming a new government, said Iraq must be "cleansed from Baathist ideas."
"They have been a criminal party," he said in a recent interview. "All of them are compromised. It's very difficult to find a Baathist who was not compromised."
Those who were active in the party insisted that the organization, which came to power in a 1968 coup, has disbanded. Party offices, once a feature of every neighborhood, have been taken over and turned into schools, community centers and clinics.
"We're finished," said Jabbar Kadhim, a director-general at the Industry Ministry who used to be a local party leader.
Many Iraqis, however, have not been as quick to reach that conclusion. There is a widespread fear here that former Baath leaders have transformed themselves into a clandestine group and will try to disrupt the new government.
"They got their start as an underground organization," said an aide to Chalabi. "They are still a threat."
But Kadhim said that would occur only if former Baathists were shut out of the new government.
"If the party members are treated in a normal manner and they are given their rights, there will be no more party," Kadhim said. "If not, the Baath Party will rise again."
I particularly like the bit about filling up high levels of the police force with Ba'athist thugs.
So much for liberating the Iraqi people.
No, there have been no other threads on this issue.
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