Law could help members of Saddam’s former party

Iraqi government hopes to ease tensions with Sunnis, detract from insurgency

? A day after Saddam Hussein was sentenced to hang, the Shiite-dominated government offered a major concession Monday to his Sunni backers that could see thousands of members of the ousted dictator’s Baath party reinstated in their jobs.

With a tight curfew holding down violence after Saddam’s guilty verdict and death sentence, the government reached out to disaffected Sunnis in hopes of enticing them away from the insurgency, which has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and is responsible for the vast majority of U.S. casualties.

Across the country, jubilant Shiites celebrated the verdict while Sunnis held defiant counterdemonstrations.

Iraq’s appeals court is expected to rule on an appeal by Saddam’s lawyers by the middle of January, the chief prosecutor said Monday, setting in motion a possible execution by mid-February. If the ruling is upheld, The Associated Press has learned that Iraq’s three-man presidential council is pledged to allow Saddam’s hanging to take place. The execution must be carried out within 30 days of the appeals court’s decision.

Sunday’s verdict and Monday’s opening to the Sunnis were seen as a welcome break for the United States, which recently had called for the Iraqi government to stop purging members of Saddam’s Baath party from their jobs. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, however, has balked at U.S. requests to set up an amnesty for insurgents.

Iraqi police read newspapers Monday in Baghdad that contain details about a death sentence verdict delivered Sunday to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. A move to assuage Sunni anger by allowing ranking members of Saddam's Sunni-dominated Baath Party back into public life took a step forward Monday.

The United States dissolved and banned the Baath party in May 2003, a month after toppling Saddam. The U.S. later softened its stance, inviting former high-level officers from the disbanded military to join the security forces.

The former top U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, also allowed thousands of teachers who were Baathists to return to work. He conceived of the so-called de-Baathification effort but later found it had gutted key ministries and the military with no replacement personnel among the Iraqi work force and educated elite.

About 1.5 million of Iraq’s 27 million people belonged to the Baath party – formally known as the Baath Arab Socialist Party – when Saddam was ousted. Most said they joined for professional, not ideological, reasons.

Monday’s political concession to the Sunnis was detailed by a government organization that had been charged with removing Saddam loyalists from state institutions. Under a draft law, which the Shiite-dominated parliament must approve, the organization now plans to amend its rules to enable thousands of former Baath party members to win back their jobs.

U.S. deaths

As of Monday, at least 2,836 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.