IRAQ: One day after pledging to wipe out the remains of Saddam Hussein's regime, the new US administrator of Iraq, Mr Paul Bremer, yesterday banned all top members of his Baath party from government jobs.
The decree comes amid growing fear among Iraqis that the regime could claw its way back to power as government ministries reopen and the US-led coalition tries to speed up the return of day-to-day life.
An official from the US Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) said the move could affect between 15,000 and 30,000 senior Baath members, although relatively few are believed to be seeking back their old jobs.
"We recognise this is not going to be a very tidy process," the official said, acknowledging there could be unwarranted accusations and a long investigation period to check out allegations.
"The risk of doing this is a lot less than the risk of not doing it," the official said. "We've got to keep our eyes on the big picture. Baathism is finished. It's over."
Mr Bremer's written decree said Baath leaders were banned from "positions of authority and responsibility in Iraqi society" so that "representative government in Iraq is not threatened." The ban was to apply to state institutions like universities and hospitals, state-run firms and civil servants.
The decree also outlawed portraits of Saddam and other known Baath leaders in public spaces and government offices.
The United States has been criticised for the time it is taking to restore order and reopen ministries, as well as for working with known former Baathists as it tries to get the country back on its feet.
In his first press conference since taking up the reins of post-war Iraq this week, Mr Bremer acknowledged on Thursday the US dilemma when he vowed to eradicate the party's remnants.
"We have a very tough problem. We are trying very hard to work with Iraqis to restore essential services. We are trying to work with the people available in those ministries who are capable and technically competent," he said. "We are determined that the Baathists and Saddamism will not come back to Iraq," he said.
US officials have admitted that they are focusing on getting people back in their jobs while background checks are carried out on civil servants, a process that can take weeks.
Under Saddam, it was all but impossible to hold a major post without pledging party loyalty.
The ORHA official said loosely organised groups of Baathists were believed to be responsible for some of the crime wave that has gripped the nation since Saddam was knocked from power.
"What we see here is small pockets of Baathists organising themselves into criminal gangs," the official said. "But I don't think there is a risk the Baath party will rise from the ashes." The bouts of anarchy have fuelled criticism of the US handling of its military victory, with charges that the United States had no effective plan to prepare for what would come after Saddam's fall.
Baghdad, a city of five million, has descended into lawlessness and chaos. Violent crime is on the rise, guns are widely available and many shopkeepers are afraid to reopen for business.
Some US officials suggest that attacks on key infrastructure sites like the power grid may be carried out by Baath loyalists in an effort to undermine the US-led coalition's control over the country.
Meanwhile, US investigators believe that the $950 million in cash that American troops recently found stashed in boxes in several locations around Baghdad is most of the $1 billion that Saddam Hussein's family secretly removed from the Iraqi central bank only days before the war began.
"We have a high degree of confidence that the found money is the same as the plundered money," Mr David Aufhauser, general counsel of the US Treasury Department, said at a congressional hearing yesterday.
Bush administration officials say the fact that members of the Hussein family left the cash behind appears to indicate that they were surprised by the speed of the US military's advance.
- (AP/Washington Post)