Iraqi Lawmakers Pass Pro-Baath Party Law

[January 12, 2008]  BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraq's parliament adopted legislation Saturday on the reinstatement of former Baath party supporters to government jobs, a benchmark sought by the United States as a key step toward national reconciliation.

The voting was carried out by a show of hands on each of the law's 30 clauses. The bill, officially called the "Accountability and Justice" law, seeks to relax restrictions on the right of members of Saddam Hussein's now-dissolved Baath party to fill government posts. It is also designed to reinstate thousands of Baathists in government jobs from which they had been dismissed because of their ties to the party.

The dismissal of thousands of Baath Party supporters from these jobs had deepened sectarian tensions between Iraq's majority Shiites and the once-dominant Sunni Arabs.

[Associated Press]

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