Iraq PM turns to former Saddam Ba’athists for support
Iraq’s embattled prime minister offered an
olive branch to former supporters of Saddam Hussein, calling for them to join
the country’s new leaders in a national peace process.
Iraq’s embattled prime minister offered an olive branch to former supporters of Saddam Hussein, calling for them to join the country’s new leaders in a national peace process.
At the opening of peace talks, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki urged former soldiers from the ousted dictator’s defeated army to join Iraq’s new security forces in fighting the armed factions which are tearing the country apart.
He also urged delegates — including for the first time representatives of some of Iraq’s illegal armed groups — to review the law which banned tens of thousands of Saddam’s Baath Party activists from working in the civil service.
Politically, the return to public life of former Baath officials will raise the hackles of hardline Shiite militants, whose majority community was persecuted by Saddam’s Sunni-led regime.
I wonder if Iraq will end up with a government that looks like the “good old days” — just absent a guy named Hussein fronting the whole thing?
Posted: Sat - December 16, 2006 at 02:27 PM