Sunnis must be part of Iraq”s future

Almost three months after Iraqi elections, Iraq’s elected assembly has finally formed a government – in which key posts remain empty.

The good news: This is the first fully elected government in Iraqi history. The Shiite majority – 60 percent of Iraqis – finally took power via the vote from the Sunni Arab minority that had controlled Iraq since its creation.

The bad news: The bitter issue that blocked the government’s formation remains unresolved: how to bring Sunnis into the government. No issue is more crucial for ending the violence in Iraq.

The armed insurgency paralyzing Iraqi life, politics and reconstruction is mainly manned by Sunnis. The best way to woo alienated Sunnis away from supporting the insurgency is to bring them into the political process.

Shiite leaders recognize this. They pledged to give Sunnis key Cabinet positions even though most Sunni voters boycotted the elections.

“The reason it took so long to form a government was because we were trying to bring in Sunnis,” I was told by phone by Shiite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi.

Yet top posts set aside for Sunni Arabs, including defense minister, remain empty. The candidates nominated by Sunnis were vetoed by Shiite assembly members because of their alleged Baath Party past.

This is a highly emotional issue. Tens of thousands of Shiites were slain by Saddam Hussein’s brutal Baath Party regime. Shiite civilians are still being targeted by the insurgents, whose leaders include former Baathists.

But moderate Shiites and U.S. officials have suggested that only Baathists directly implicated in atrocities should be banned. The broad de-Baathification policies introduced by occupation czar Paul Bremer alienated many Sunnis who had to join the Baath party because it was required for their jobs.

Under the outgoing interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, many Baathists were brought back to key posts. Former Baathist military officers were invited back to lead important security units, such as counterterrorism forces.

In January, I interviewed some of these onetime Baathist generals in Baghdad; they now head police commando battalions. They had turned against Saddam in the mid-1990s, did jail time and say they are loyal to the new system. U.S. military officials told me these ex-Baathist generals were the most effective commanders in the new Iraqi security forces.

But top officials in the new Shiite-led government want to return to the policy of broad de-Baathification. They especially want to clean out Baathists, including the former generals, from the interior and defense ministries.

I got a whiff of this anti-Baathist anger in January from Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of SCIRI (Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq), one of the two main Shiite political parties. His office gives out a banner emblazoned with pictures of 24 of his brothers, uncles and cousins who were slain by the Baathists.

Hakim blasted “the wrong decisions taken by the American administration” and Allawi in letting Baathists return to the security ministries.

“We have principles,” Hakim said. “One is de-Baathification and, according to these rules, improper persons should not be given positions.” Last Thursday in Baghdad, he demanded that the new government “de-Baathify Saddam’s terrorists from all state institutions.”

It is easy to understand Hakim’s rage and fear of Baathist penetration of security ministries. Allawi did bring some questionable bureaucrats back into office, including the outgoing defense minister.

But if those real concerns lead to a massive purge of ex-Baathists, including former military officers who are successfully battling insurgents, then the insurgency will worsen. Even more worrisome, some new Shiite leaders want to bring Shiite and Kurdish militias into the Iraqi security forces, which could provoke more Sunnis to fight.

Hopefully, calmer heads will prevail. I spoke by phone with Laith Kubba, the talented spokesman for new Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who said the process to remove Baathists “would be a very well-considered process, not a purge. There will be revisions, not wholesale sacking. We are talking of individual cases. All players are aware of how complex it is.”

Jaafari himself is a moderate who told me in January that there “is no policy for Shia to take revenge, even if they have the majority.” If so, the new Shiite leaders must find a way to bring Sunnis into the political tent and form security forces that are Iraqi, not sectarian in character.

One sign of whether calmer Shiite heads have prevailed will be whether a respectable Sunni is found to head the defense ministry. Soon.