Think Progress

Undoing The De-Baathification

On May 16, 2003, just four days after then-U.S. administrator of Iraq L. Paul Bremer arrived in Baghdad, he issued a sweeping order that outlawed Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and dismissed all senior members from their government posts. Bremer's order, the first he issued as the top American in Iraq, "led to the firing of about 30,000 ex-Baathists from various ministries" and ended "up affecting a lot more people than intended and turning a lot of people into enemies" of the United States. Before issuing his order, Bremer had been warned by the CIA's Baghdad station chief that the move would "drive tens of thousands of Baathists underground by nightfall," but Bremer said that "it's not open for discussion." Days after issuing his initial de-Baathification directive, Bremer issued a second order dissolving Iraq's 500,000-member military and intelligence services. This pair of orders is considered "the original sin that led to Iraq's current turmoil," as it "crippled Iraq's institutions of governance and security and created half a million angry and jobless people in the process," ripe "for recruitment by insurgent and militia groups."

CHAOS BECOMES MORE CHAOTIC: In April 2004, as the Iraqi insurgency intensified, "Bremer announced that de-Baathification had been 'poorly implemented' and applied 'unevenly and unjustly,' and said he supported a plan to allow 'vetted senior officers from the former regime' back into the military services." But the decision to bring Baathists back into the government, an effort spearheaded by then-interim prime minister Ayad Allawi, "infuriated some Iraqis, particularly ethnic Kurds and Shiite Arabs, groups systematically oppressed by Hussein and the Sunni-dominated Baath government." Both groups soon came to hold "significant political power" in the central Iraqi government, all but guaranteeing bitter difficulty in bringing the disaffected Baathists back into the government. The De-Baathification Commission, which was headed by neconservative darling Ahmed Chalabi, was "used as a platform by the Shia government to exact revenge on Sunnis for past wrongs." Reversing Bremer's original de-Baathification has since been one of the key political benchmarks pushed by the United States and one of the many flash points for tension in Iraq's parliament.

PASSING THE BUCK: In Jan. 2006, Bremer released a book about his experiences as the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, in which he attempted to re-write his role in the decision to implement de-Baathification. "It wasn't me," Bremer told NBC's Brian Williams. "The decision was discussed by my advisers with the senior civilians in the pentagon for weeks before I made my recommendation, which was approved in Washington." But according to Rajiv Chandrasekaran, who served as the Washington Post's Baghdad Bureau Chief at the time of de-Baathification, after Bremer was briefed on the concept of de-Baathification, it struck him "as just the sort of bold initiative that he wants to implement." The decision to disband the Iraqi army also came from Bremer, though he later denied it. In Feb. 2004, Gen. Peter Pace, then-vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Bremer "ordered the army disbanded on his own authority" and that the Joint Chiefs "were not asked for a recommendation, or for advice."

PROGRESS IN NAME ONLY: When President Bush announced the "surge" in Jan. 2007, one of the "critical areas" in which he said the increased security would create a"breathing space" for political progress was for "the government" to "reform de-Baathification laws." On Jan. 12, 2007, the Iraqi parliament passed the Justice and Accountability Law, a nominal re-Baathification law said to "allow thousands of former Baathists who were not involved in past crimes against Iraqis to fill posts in the Shiite-dominated government." Though the law would appear to present progress on a key political benchmark, significant concerns have been raised about the process under which it was passed and the practical effects it will have on Iraq. According to Middle East expert Juan Cole, the legislation was actually spearheaded by the most anti-Baathist groups and opposed by former Baathists. The session of parliament in which it was narrowly passed was attended by only 150 members of the 275-seat parliament, meaning the vote count "could have been as low as 72." Days after the legislation passed, the U.S. embassy was "notably cautious, declining to comment until it finished reviewing the draft." The New York Times reports that "the legislation is at once confusing and controversial, a document riddled with loopholes and caveats to the point that some Sunni and Shiite officials say it could actually exclude more former Baathists than it lets back in, particularly in the crucial security ministries."

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VERSUS

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