Posted on 06/06/2004 9:10:27 AM PDT by Pikamax
PM abolishes committee to eradicate Baath party
Baghdad, Iraq Press, June 5, 2004 – The country’s new interim leader has decided to dissolve a committee the US occupation authorities had established to sack members of the Baath party and prevent them from holding public positions.
In one of his first rulings, Ayad Allawi abolished the Baath Eradication Commission, a body headed by Ahmad Jalabi, a member of the now-dissolved Governing Council.
The US-led administration of Iraq is to transfer the country’s sovereignty to Allawi’s government on June 30.
The interim prime minister opposed mass punishment of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party and also was against the decommissioning of the armed forces – decisions many now regard as major blunders by Washington.
Jalabi and his committee pursued their debaathification mercilessly and tens of thousands of Iraqis, many of them innocent of atrocities the ousted leader Saddam Hussein committed, lost their jobs and means to support their families.
The dissolution of the armed forces also added at least half a million soldiers and officers to the army of jobless Iraqis.
Iraqi observer cite the debaathification and abolishment of armed forces as among the reasons for the current escalation in attacks on US troops and Iraqi security forces.
Allawi’s decision to reverse the debaathification is a signal that the interim prime minister is keen to restore law and order through reconciliation.
At least 60,000 Iraqis have been directly affected by the debaathification policies.
Now, the new interim authorities face the uphill task of rehabilitating most of them.
In a sign of tolerance, Allawi’s new interim government includes four former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party.
Thamir Ghadhban, Leila Abdul-Latif, Tahir al-Bakkaa and Adnan al-Janabi, ministers of oil, labor, higher education and state respectively, played major roles during Saddam Hussein’s rule of the country.
Ipfront
Interesting.
I tempted to say, "Mr. Allawi, you'll be sorry!"
They'll be SORRRRRRY
Naw...this is just Arab think...nothing to it.
This was the situation that Patton was dealing with in regards to Nazi Party membership in post war Germany. Anybody with any responsible job was required to be a Party member so the trick was to separate the technically competent Nazis-in-name-only from the political Nazis.
Of course, since Patton had such a gift for diplomatic speech, he compared Nazi Party membership to Republican and Democrat Party membership in the U.S. and was promptly relieved as the Military Governor of Bavaria. :-)
Patton was not too PC. He called them as he saw them. He was the best allied general, far ahead of Eisenhower and Montgomery. His political candor prevented him from getting too far with the high command. He was wanting to go on toward Moscow and capturing Stalin. The world would have been far better off if his advice had been folllwed.
Patton was fortunate that he didn't have to live too long after WWII. I don't think he could have stomached the complete surrender of E Europe to the Soviets.
This does not apply to any Baathist who has blood on their hands. They do need to watch out that socialism doesn't creep into their new country, and they really do need to outlaw the party itself.
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