Baghdad, Iraq – Ahmad Chalabi, a perennial Iraqi insider and political survivor, held out an olive branch to his former enemies Wednesday by publicly welcoming onetime members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party back into the public life.
Chalabi, who heads a commission charged with removing former ranking Baath Party members from public office, told reporters at a Baghdad news conference that the Iraqi government had changed course and was trying to lure more Baathists back into government.
The de-Baathification laws established by American administrator Paul Bremer after the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion rankled Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority, which served in Hussein’s political party in greater proportion than other Iraqi groups. Reforming those laws has been a key demand of the Bush administration as well as the Sunnis, whose alienation from the political process has fueled violence.
Chalabi said more than 2,300 high-ranking Baath Party members had been or were being reinstated to their former government jobs or were being given pensions.
He also said that under new rules, the de-Baathification committee’s only role would be to identify former members of the party and their rank.
“Deciding whether they are allowed to participate in the political process or not is up to the Iraqi judicial system,” he said.
However, Chalabi gave assurances that the ongoing reinstatements would not allow those who committed crimes against Iraqis under the former regime to be given “amnesty.”
He added: “Justice will take its course in the event that any of these individuals were to be suspected of implication in crimes against humanity or corruption.”
Chalabi is a secular Shiite who was once favored by those advocating the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He emerged as a divisive symbol of occupation – a longtime exile advanced by some American officials to help lead a country for which he showed little understanding.
His political party failed to win a single seat in the December 2005 elections.
