WP: Iraqi Alliance Seeks to Oust Top Officials Of Hussein Era

[Pirate Smile]

Iraqi Alliance Seeks to Oust Top Officials Of Hussein Era

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 18, 2005; Page A01

BAGHDAD, April 17 -- The Shiite Muslim bloc leading the new Iraqi government will demand the removal of all top officials left over from the era of former president Saddam Hussein, a top official said. The move would be part of a purge that U.S. officials fear could oust thousands of the most capable Iraqis from military and intelligence forces the United States has spent more than $5 billion rebuilding.

The Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance also will insist on trials for every former official, soldier or worker suspected of wrongdoing during that time, Hussain Shahristani, who helped form the Shiite alliance, said in an interview that outlined plans for handling members of Hussein's Baath Party in the armed forces and intelligence services.

Shahristani said the alliance would also seek prosecution of what he said were the few thousand leaders of the Sunni Muslim-led insurgency.

For the alliance and the long-persecuted Shiite community it represents, Shahristani said "justice prevails" over everything else.
Concerns about the purge have drawn sharp U.S. concern. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, flying unannounced to Iraq last week, warned the Shiite-led government not to "come in and clean house" in the security forces.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61487-2005Apr17.html

[quaoar]

1. How can we get one of those purge things over here?

[Teaser]

2. This actually isn't good.

Although some officers deserve what's coming to them, purging all former Ba'athists from the gov't is going to provide a vast pool of recruits for the burgeoning insurgency.

[TahitiNut]

6. Schadenfreude.

It's a Pyrrhic victory for those who predicted the depth and extent of this clusterfuck.

[rodeodance]

7. yes, jobs are scare over there and they will be ostrasized from what

jobs there are. Bad move.

[grytpype]

3. Unbelievable. Read and recommend!

This is going to be a disaster.

The Sunnis want to purge just about all the Baathists from the Vichy Iraq armed forces and intelligence services, which is just about all the experienced personnel they have.

Remember when Jerry Bremer disbanded the Iraqi Army? Well, it looks like it's going to happen all over again.

And what are all those fired Baathists going to do with their time? Who knows, maybe they'll take up gardening. Or they'll join the insurgency, one or the other.

What a total clusterfuck.

[grytpype]

4. Don't forget to recommend!!!!

The article makes it look like the US really is not in political control any more in Iraq... which may even be true now.

I don't know what's worse, having Bush and his Gang of Idiots in charge or having no one in charge.

[Frederik]

14. Yes, Rumsfeld

tried to persuade them not to do this.

[Lori Price CLG]

16. 'Vichy Iraq armed forces' --clever! n/t

[ECH1969]

5. Boy is that really f***ing stupid

Overnight your going to have tens of thousands of potental US trained men (with your tax dollars) for the insurgency to pick up and these guys know US and Iraqi security procedures and other info that they can use to cause chaos.

That is as stupid as Bremer disbanding the Iraqi Army.

No it is more stupid then Bremer disbanding the Iraqi Army, because these guys have seen from experience how stupid that move was and the problems that it caused.

[Teaser]

8. Recommended.

Folks, this is an important story that will shape Iraq for years to come. It deserves to be recommended.

[Javaman]

9. But, but, but...

We disbanded them, didn't we? oh wait, we hired them back, hold on there a second, are they up to their old tricks again? Oh okay, disband them, but wait, didn't disbanding them in the first place piss most of them off? But didn't bringing them back just piss them off more by insulting them? So they are going to disband them to flood the terrorists with more warm bodies for their cause and piss off the ones that were rehired and now fired again...
Damn, I have to make a flow chart for all this mess.

[dutchdoctor]

12. That's hilarious!

Please send me the flowchart when you're done, because I don't understand any of this.

[MetaTrope]

13. Not only did we hire them back on...

But all those senior officers who managed the logistics of chemical warfare and the like were brought to the U.S. for some special School of the Americas type training. Still doing our best to save the world from democracy...

[countmyvote4real]

10. Freedom is on the march or whatever.

Foresight told many of us that the invasion of Iraq would be a mistake on many levels. Hindsight now informs many more. And yet the US still persists in sticking their nose (and the blood of our young people and our tax dollars) in places where they don’t have a clue.

The UN could have provided a cover, but the * administration wanted “no strings” on the oil assets. If we only lived in a world where blood per barrel could trump oil per barrel. It’s probably needless to say that we don’t. But *’s nominee to the UN kind of confirms that they don’t give a fuck about diplomacy.

Anybody on any level that supports this shit must be voted out of office. Period. I must say, if it’s not apparent, that a governmental purge is not a bad idea. The irony is that Iraq probably has more accountability and voter verification than we do in the US.

Oh God, I envy their democracy.

[alittlelark]

11. "I love the smell of THEOCRACY in the morning" ! n/t

[Roland99]

15. Iraqi Democracy on the March!

WTG, Propagandist!

[leftchick]

17. I was just Reading Juan Cole's View of This... Disaster!

http://juancole.com/


~snip~

The United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite religious parties) who now dominate the Iraqi government are insisting on purging the Iraqi government of former members of the Baath Party and trying any who might be associated with crimes. They are also dismissive of attempts to reach out to Sunni guerrilla movements. The interim government of Iyad Allawi, himself an ex-Baathist, had appointed to intelligence and military positions a number of former Baath officers associated with the Iraqi National Accord, who had worked with the US CIA against Saddam after breaking with him. Since most ex-Baathists are Sunni, and since most Sunni Arabs who amount to anything in Iraq had at least some tenuous relationship to the Baath party, the upshot of deputy speaker Hussein Shahristani's vindictive comments is actually a long-term and massive marginalization of the Sunni Arab community. This marginalization will likely prolong and deepen the guerrilla war.

[Zorra]

18. I assume that many of these officials were complicit in carrying out the

brutal unjust massacres, incarcerations, tortures, and assassinations against the people of Iraq that Bush and members of his administration have repeatedly told us occurred during the Saddam Hussein Presidency:

(Quoted excerpts from the posted article)

"Under Hussein, registration in the Baath Party was a requirement for jobs on almost all levels, from army general to teacher. Hussein's armed forces and his nearly two dozen intelligence agencies were responsible for mass killings, imprisonment, uprooting and torture. Members of the Shiite and Kurdish opposition made up hundreds of thousands of the victims.

Politicians say that people responsible for some of those abuses and Baathist die-hards have made their way into the new security forces and should be removed."

But according to the posted article, the Bush Administration supports the placing and maintaining of these brutal, monstrous henchmen of Saddam Hussein into positions of military, administrative, and political power:

"The Shiite Muslim bloc leading the new Iraqi government will demand the removal of all top officials left over from the era of former president Saddam Hussein, a top official said. The move would be part of a purge that U.S. officials fear could oust thousands of the most capable Iraqis from military and intelligence forces the United States has spent more than $5 billion rebuilding.
snip---
Concerns about the purge have drawn a sharp U.S. response. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, flying unannounced to Iraq last week, warned the Shiite-led government not to "come in and clean house" in the security forces.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61487-2005Apr17.html

Isn't this somewhat analogous to putting high some of the high level Nazis, including Gestapo and SS members, in Hitler's government in charge of running Germany after the war?

Bush and the PNAC would never even consider such a thing if they had
any real concern for the welfare of the Iraqi people. What are they thinking? Do they think that this will be taken as a sign of good faith by the Iraqi people?

What an insult.

No wonder the Iraqi Resistance is whacking significant numbers of US installed Iraqi officials and cops on an almost daily basis. They are probably killing off the Baathist bastards that murdered members of their families during the Saddam Hussein regime as well as trying to rid the country of foreign occupiers.

[ECH1969]

19. Read what Juan Cole says about it

http://juancole.com

and you might change your mind.

[LdyGuique]

20. Since I have believed since the beginning that once the U.S.

destablized Iraq, that it would eventually turn to a bloodbath between the Kurds, Sunis, and Shiites (let alone all of the fairly independent tribes) -- this move would likely cause exactly that: civil war.

It's really sad as I'd hoped that the coalition government that it put together would manage to avoid the standard pattern of dictatorships falling and multiple militias fighting it out for pieces of the pie. I didn't really think it was possible, but I was willing to put my personal opinions and observations on the backburner and willing to concede to Bushco that they'd managed to tap into something hopeful. I hadn't made it to the Maher level praise, but was withholding comment and judgment until we actually pulled out.

My original opinion that Bushco was ignorant of the subtleties of Iraqi divisions seems to be the correct one. I feel pain for these poor people Civil wars are the nastiest and bloodiest and frequently last for decades. I've always felt that the Kurds would continue to push for their own homeland, which is still part of Turkey and Iran, in addition to Iraq. I see no reason that they will back off.