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By Peter Slevin and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
washingtonpost.com
Monday, May 12, 2003; Page A10

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BAGHDAD, May 11 -- Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, announced today that Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, which dominated the country for more than three decades through violence and intimidation, has been abolished, although U.S. authorities have allowed many prominent members to return to top government positions.

The party essentially evaporated after U.S. forces invaded Iraq and overthrew Hussein and his government, but Franks made it official by ordering an institution that exercised power in every Iraqi city and village to cease existence immediately. He said in a broadcast on U.S.-controlled radio that one-party rule was over.

"The Iraqi Baath Socialist Party is dissolved," Franks said in a statement read by an announcer in Arabic and broadcast across Iraq this afternoon. He said the "apparatus of Iraqi security, intelligence and military intelligence belonging to Saddam Hussein are deprived of their authority and power."

The effect of Franks's declaration remained unclear, but it seemed largely symbolic, given the party's organizational implosion and the somewhat contradictory U.S. request that many former high-ranking government officials, most of whom were Baath members, report to their jobs as usual.

U.S. authorities have made "de-Baathification" a goal of the occupation period, but have not laid out consistent rules for accomplishing it. Officials in charge of Iraq's reconstruction have emphasized that the majority of Baath Party members are useful citizens who joined the party without passion, whether out of fear or pragmatism.

The only Baath members automatically disqualified from participating in the new government are senior figures from Hussein's rule because of suspected involvement in human rights abuses or close ties to the former Iraqi leader.

Just in the past week, however, U.S. officials have removed a dozen Baathists from the Planning Ministry and promised other selective purges. Scattered protests flared again today outside government ministries where employees protested the continued presence of top party officials.

"They're all crooks," said Entisar Ahmed, an accountant at the Trade Ministry who had gathered with a group of colleagues at a grain silo to demand they be paid their monthly salary and a promised bonus for last year's performance. "They should not be allowed back to work."

Dealing with the estimated 1.5 million people who were Baath members has become a controversial and complicated part of the Pentagon's postwar reconstruction effort. Many Iraqis want former Baathists to be excluded from reclaiming high-level government jobs or at least scrutinized.

Non-Baathists, particularly those leading once-exiled political groups opposed to Hussein, contend the inclusion of Baathists could promote corruption, undermine the interim administration's legitimacy and anger those persecuted by the party during years of vengeful rule.

U.S. officials say that barring former party members from returning to work until they are screened would delay the resuscitation of important services. Almost every national government agency and local council was stocked with party members. Many are technocrats and bureaucrats that the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance says it needs.

At the Health Ministry over the weekend, the U.S. official in charge ordered more than 50 aspirants to senior administrative jobs to resign their Baath memberships. If they were not members, they were required to sign a statement denouncing "the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein and his regime."

The official, Stephen Browning, required non-members to declare, "I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the Arab Socialist Renaissance Party of Iraq," the Baath Party.

Former membership did not disqualify any of the aspiring interim officials, as long as they resigned immediately. Browning named as the ministry's temporary leader Ali Shnan, a party member derided by many fellow doctors. Shnan signed the document and quit the party at Browning's insistence.

Franks, in addition to dissolving the party, said coalition forces expect Iraqis to help them collect key Baath Party documents.

"Anyone who possesses documents related to the Baath Party or the Iraqi government must maintain and protect them and hand these documents to the coalition," Franks said in the statement.

Successive U.S. administrations spent more than $10 million collecting evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Baath Party's reign. The Bush administration has pledged criminal prosecutions against top members but also aims to assist future leaders in investigating lower-level Baathists as part of a truth and reconciliation process.

Addressing the political process to come, Franks said freedom of expression would be central as Iraqis prepare to choose an interim government and, ultimately, elect a permanent leadership.

"All parties and political groups can take part in the political life in Iraq," Franks said, "except those who urge violence or practice it."

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Direct Link:
--http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42950-2003May11.html

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