BAGHDAD, 27 November 2004 — The Iraqi government is reviving its de-Baathification policy after former members of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni Muslim regime have reportedly managed to sneak back into key positions in the security apparatus.
“We have evidence that Baathist elements have infiltrated the National Guard, police and Interior Ministry, and that some of them are leaking information to terrorists,” Sami Al-Askari told AFP.
The Shiite Muslim heads the surveillance commission of the de-Baathification committee, which former US overseer in Iraq, Paul Bremer, set up in May 2003 — two months after the invasion — to purge the administration of pro-Saddam elements.
Chaired by Ahmed Chalabi — a Shiite and leading light in the exiled opposition under Saddam — the committee had expelled 30,000 people from the administration.
Some 12,000 had been brought back into their posts after being forced into “post-Saddam rehab centers” where they had to undergo a social and political “re-education”, often performed by university professors.
The committee’s activities froze when Chalabi fell from grace in Washington and his rival Iyad Allawi was picked to lead the interim government six months ago.
Officials claim that some ministries seized the opportunity to call back some of their former employees without submitting their reintegration to the committee.
But the Cabinet has decided the time has come to crack down on Baathists creeping back into the country’s fragile institutions.
It announced in a memorandum on Wednesday that any return of an expelled government worker would be deemed illegal unless that person had not been screened.
“After attempting to sideline the committee, the government changed its approach when it discovered that infiltrations had been taking place. This memorandum confirms that this committee is useful and should play an efficient role,” the Cabinet said.
Askari cited as an example, the recent arrest of the head of security for the interim government headquarters in the Green Zone, a fortified compound in Baghdad that houses the nation’s key institutions, including the US and British embassies.
He also mentioned the arrest of a high-ranking National Guard officer in the Dyala province, after 43 members of the fledgling security force were killed in an ambush north of Baghdad by attackers who had apparently been tipped off.
“Since April, the committee’s role had begun to shrink prior to its disbanding. As the Fallujah fighting led to the return of some former senior Baathist leaders to run the city, some ministries started acting as if it no longer existed,” he said.
As violence continues to plague the country, the Iraqi government is reverting to tougher filtering.
“Ministries allowed back into their ranks and into top positions some officials whose names were on the de-Baathification lists,” Askari added. The Interior Ministry had opened its doors to 940 of its former employees, but it was recently forced to backtrack and kick out some 500 black sheep.
