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With the midterm elections fast approaching, the panic over Iraq seems more intense than ever. That country, the thinking goes, is a hopeless mess, and there could be a precipitous American withdrawal, especially if the Democrats win. But doing so would leave the silent majority of Iraqis hostage to the most vicious extremists, abandoning those Iraqi leaders who have championed liberal democratic values. One of them is Mithal al-Alusi, a 53-year-old Sunni Arab who won a seat in parliament last December after having served as director general of the National Commission on de-Baathification. Mr. al-Alusi ran on a platform of...

Coiffed, groomed and impeccably suited, Mithal al-Alusi cuts an imposing figure at this trendy hotel. In the empty bar lounge, he makes himself at home to a breakfast of fresh fruit, strong coffee and a constant flow of cigarettes. The leader of the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation is in town to promote his vision for a new Iraq and accept an accolade from an unlikely sponsor – the American Jewish Committee – who honored him with a Moral Courage award at their annual dinner last week. His act of courage was an attempt to break Iraq's long-standing taboo...

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi Parliament passed a bill on Saturday that would allow some former officials from Saddam Hussein’s party to fill government positions but would impose a strict ban on others. The legislation is the first of the major so-called political benchmark measures to pass after months of American pressure for progress. The measure, which is expected to be approved as a law by the presidential council, was described by its backers as opening the door for the reinstatement of thousands of low-level Baath Party members barred from office after the 2003 invasion. Since then, the Bush administration has...

Those who claim that the surge strategy in Iraq has paid no dividends because it hasn't met Congressional benchmarks may wish to skip to the next post. The Iraqi National Assembly has passed one of the two most critical benchmarks that the American government had pressed for Baghdad to adopt, the de-Baathification reform that will allow Sunnis to once again enter government jobs: 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...

Iraq's parliament adopted legislation Saturday on the reinstatement of thousands of former Baath party supporters to government jobs, a key benchmark sought by the United States as a step toward national reconciliation. The bill was approved by a unanimous show of hands on each of the law's 30 clauses. Titled the Accountability and Justice law, it seeks to relax restrictions on the rights 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....

We broke America's terrible habit of ruling by proxy through military regimes. --snip-- Take a moment to imagine what would have been written in the liberal press had the old military class been preserved and utilized to "stabilize" Iraq. I can write the headlines for you: "Baathist War Criminal Gets Second Career as American Employee"; "Once-Wanted Man, Brigadier Kamal Now Shares Jokes With 82nd Airborne"; "Kurds and Shiites Say: What Regime Change?"; "From Basra to Kirkuk, America Brings Saddamism Without Saddam." And, if you like, I can add the names of the reporters who would have written the stories. This...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 27, 2007 – President Bush today praised Iraqi leaders for an agreement that will allow former low-level Baath Party officials to serve in the Iraqi government. The agreement helps meet one of the specific benchmarks set by U.S. legislators and shows progress in the political arena, Bush said during a stop at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M. Iraqi President Jalal Talibani; Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki; Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi; Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi; and Massoud Barzani, president of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, hammered out the agreement and announced the breakthrough yesterday in Baghdad. The...

A news item appeared in the Iraqi Az-Zaman daily on Monday. The report will probably not receive wide coverage in the Western Press, but its contents may indicate a critical turn in the shape of the post-Ba`thi Iraqi state. The report also enumerated the institutions whose employees will be offered the re-assignment package. According to Az-Zaman, these included: “The members of the Republican Guard, the Special Guard, the 1st Army Corps, the Office of the Presidency, the Military Intelligence, the Apparatus of Special Security, the members of General Security and other institutions.” The news item states that the “High Commission...

BUBBA STEPS OVER THE LINE By DICK MORRIS November 22, 2005 -- By traveling to Dubai, just a few hundred miles from the combat zone, to denounce the American involvement in Iraq as a "big mistake," Bill Clinton has made a big mistake of his own. Normally, a top leader of the Democratic Party and the spouse of a presidential candidate can and should feel free to say anything he chooses. But a former president of the United States should be more careful before he tells hundreds of thousands of young men and women, many of whom served under him,...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 12 - Former officials of the Baath Party confirmed Saturday on their Web site the death of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the last of Saddam Hussein's inner circle still at large in Iraq and a man long sought by the American military command as the effective leader of the Baathist insurgent underground here. "On the blessed soil of Iraq, the soul of our comrade in struggle, and field commander of the heroic resistance, Izzat Ibrahim, passed away to his creator at dawn yesterday," the posting said. The Web site, which is considered an authentic voice of the Baathist...

US one step behind 'Iraqi phantom' By Adrian Blomfield in Dour (Filed: 28/10/2005) Some senior Iraqi officers call him a phantom. In certain western coalition circles, he is known as Macavity, the mystery Ba'athist. Six times in the last 10 months, US forces say they have come tantalisingly close to catching Izzat al-Douri, Saddam Hussein's former right-hand man and the second-most wanted fugitive in Iraq. Izzat al-Douri, Saddam's former right-hand man But each time he has managed to slip away, though on some occasions the Americans claim to have been so close that they found the dinner still on his...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An expected purge this week of Iraqi judges and prosecutors threatens to derail the much-anticipated trial of Saddam Hussein.Despite pleas from Iraq's president and concerns that the purge could disrupt the prosecution of Saddam, the committee investigating Iraqi officials for membership in Saddam's Baath Party plans to demand the removal of 19 alleged Baathists serving on the special tribunal set up to try the despot, according to a top official in Iraq's de-Baathification committee.The list of 19 judges and prosecutors includes Raed Juhi, a judge who has headed up much of the investigation against Saddam and has...

The Bush administration has hailed the formation of a new Iraqi government as a major step toward bringing stability to the country. But behind the scenes, some U.S. officials are fretting about Iraqi plans to remove as many as 9,000 members of the country's security, intelligence and police services who have been identified as former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath regime. Such a move could wreck the Iraqi forces that the U.S. has spent two years and $5 billion trying to train, according to U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington. They are also worried that a sweeping de-Baathification order could...

A prominent Iraqi politician and the longtime head of the De-Ba'athification Committee, Mithal al-Alusi, survived an apparent attempt on his life when armed men fired on his car on the morning of 8 February. Two of al-Alusi's sons -- Ayman and Jamal -- and a bodyguard who were inside his vehicle were killed, however, when the assailants struck just outside al-Alusi's Baghdad home. Radio Free Iraq (RFI) spoke with al-Alusi, who is secretary of Iraq's Democratic Umma Party [Hizb al-Umma al-'Iraqi al-Dimuqrati], after the incident. The following is an edited transcript of that interview. Al-Alusi: Again, the ghosts of death...

More signs of Syria turn up in Iraq The Iraqi ambassador to Syria tells the Monitor that photos of high-ranking Syrian officials were found in Fallujah. By Nicholas Blanford | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor DAMASCUS, SYRIA - When US troops stormed the rebel-held city of Fallujah last month, they uncovered photos of senior Syrian officials that have further strained the already tense relations between Syria and Iraq, according to the Iraqi ambassador to Syria.Several captured insurgents were found in possession of the photographs, confirmation, according to Iraqi officials, that some elements in the Syrian regime - perhaps...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 - President Bush on Tuesday bestowed the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, on three of the central architects and executors of the war in Iraq, one of the president's strongest efforts yet at putting a formal stamp of success on a war whose outcome is still a question. The recipients were Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the overall commander of the invasion of Iraq; L. Paul Bremer III, the chief civilian administrator of the American occupation of the country; and George J. Tenet, the longtime director of central intelligence who built the case for...

Inquiry and Analysis Series - No. 197 November 19, 2004 No.197 Anti-American Ba'th Activities in ParisBy: Dr. Nimrod Rapaheli* Introduction With the defeat of the Saddam Hussein regime on April 9, 2003, the Ba'th ruling party was outlawed and a committee for the de-Ba'thification of Iraq was established. [1] However, the Ba'th's propaganda machine appears to have found a new abode in Paris, France, whence threats to the U.S. are issued regularly in three languages - English, French, and Spanish. Not surprisingly, the Ba'thist propagandists use the word "resistance" (in French, "la resistance") to underscore the association with the...

With the defeat of the Saddam Hussein regime on April 9, 2003, the Ba'th ruling party was outlawed and a committee for the de-Ba'thification of Iraq was established. [1] However, the Ba'th's propaganda machine appears to have found a new abode in Paris, France, whence threats to the U.S. are issued regularly in three languages - English, French, and Spanish. Not surprisingly, the Ba'thist propagandists use the word "resistance" (in French, "la resistance") to underscore the association with the struggle against the Nazi occupation of France during WWII. The resurrection of the Ba'th Party on French soil was further strengthened...

The 52-year-old professor, who did not want his name used, said his American colleagues mistakenly believed that Saddam's capture in December was the end of the Baathist movement in Iraq. Instead, he continued, that was just when party members in Iraq started reconciling with powerful Baathists in Damascus, Syria, and Amman, Jordan. The result was the return to Iraq of a handful of prominent exiled Iraqi members, who created a shadowy, neo-Baathist organization called ``Al-Islah,'' Arabic for ``The Reform.'' The group held a conference in London in early spring, according to news accounts of the private meeting and sources familiar...

Even with former leader Saddam Hussein detained, Iraq's Baath Party is back in business, staging attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops and recruiting disenchanted Sunni Muslims.BAGHDAD - By day, Iraqis loyal to Saddam's Hussein's much-feared Baath Party recite their oath in clandestine meetings, solicit donations from former members and talk politics over sugary tea at a Baghdad cafe known as simply ``The Party.'' By night, cells of these same men stage attacks on American and Iraqi forces, host soirees for Hussein's birthday and other former regime holidays and debrief informants still dressed in suits and ties from their jobs in...