BAGHDAD — A stepped-up campaign by Iraq’s prime minister against Saddam Hussein loyalists is alienating Sunni Muslims and stoking tensions ahead of national elections.
In its latest anti-Baathist attack, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government put three men on state television Sunday to confess their alleged roles in planning suicide attacks in Baghdad last month.
The three, all in detention and dressed in orange prison jumpsuits, said the bombings were ordered by Hussein’s Baath Party.
Al-Maliki’s intensified rhetoric worsens one of Iraq’s most dangerous sectarian fault lines — one the United States has long struggled to calm.
Reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites has been an elusive goal, seen as crucial for Iraqi’s stability — and it takes on added urgency with American forces scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of 2011. Many fear that without U.S. troops, sectarian and ethnic rifts could reignite into violence.
Al-Maliki and his fellow Shiite politicians have repeatedly warned in recent weeks against what they contend is a plot by members of the Baath Party to return to power, with what some suggest is the help of Sunni-ruled Arab nations.
He has vowed to do everything in his power to stop Baath Party loyalists from running in the upcoming parliamentary election. He also has insisted that Baathists, a term widely taken to mean Sunni Arabs, worked with al-Qaeda to carry out massive suicide bombings targeting government buildings in Baghdad that killed at least 255 people in August and October.
The Baath Party and Hussein’s regime were dominated by Sunnis, who have lost their political prominence to the majority Shiites since Hussein’s 2003 fall. Election law bars Iraqis who held senior Baath Party positions or were involved in past crimes from running for office.
The talk against Baathists raises alarm bells among Sunnis, who fear it hints at a broader move to force their candidates out of the parliamentary election set for January.
