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http://www.maconareaonline.com/news.asp?id=6630
More in the article than what is here:
More in the article than what is here:
Thu Apr 22, 2004 03:18 PM ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. authorities announced on Thursday that some senior Iraqi officials purged after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would be restored to duties in an overhaul of what had been a keystone policy of the occupation.
The review could allow some former members of Saddam's Baath Party to join an interim Iraqi government being put together by the United Nations, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Around 400,000 people were thrown out of work last May when U.S. administrator Paul Bremer dissolved the armed forces, security services and defense and information ministries. An appeals system was set up to allow them to reclaim jobs.
But there has been widespread criticism that the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, most of whose members went into exile during the Saddam years, had gone too far in excluding skilled former senior Baath members.
"The appeals process sometimes has been slower im implementation than was originally designed," U.S. spokesman Dan Senor told a Baghdad news conference. Thousands of Iraqis had complained to Bremer about it.
"We want (the policy) to be implemented in the way it was designed," he said.
Those who were Baath Party members in name only would be welcomed, spokesmen said, but those tainted by their role in Saddam's "brutal" regime before it was toppled a year ago would remain excluded.