11.1 |
De-Ba’athification
268.
The message
explained that, on 6 November, the Director General of
the
de‑Ba’athification
Commission had announced that a draft law on
de‑Ba’athification,
consistent
with Prime Minister Maliki’s National Reconciliation Plan, had been
prepared
and would
be sent to the Council of Representatives soon.
269.
The new law
would mean that only 1,500 of the 10,302 Senior Ba’athists
currently
affected
would lose their jobs. Of those, only the top tier of party members
would be
denied a
pension. The cases of those further down the ranks would be
reviewed and
those who
had not been convicted of a crime would have the option of
reinstatement
or retirement
with a pension.
270.
UK officials
explained that they would “seek to agree a few components of a
‘fair
law’ with
the US and UN and lobby hard for those changes”. They would “focus
on
reinforcing
the underlying principle that de‑Ba’athification should be an
independent
judicial
process rather than a political process”.
271.
UK officials
subsequently discussed five changes with US officials, who raised
the
first four
with Dr Chalabi.215
The
proposals, which received a mixed response, were:
•
The
de‑Ba’athification Commission should review the cases of all
de‑Ba’athified
individuals.
•
The
Commission should have a purely investigative role, passing all
evidence
to a
judge for criminal proceedings where justified.
•
The new law
should not extend the remit of the Commission to civil
society,
press and
the media.
•
The
Commission should produce a report for the Council of
Representatives,
which would
then consider its dissolution.
•
The article
that prohibited the passing of legislation in breach of
the
de‑Ba’athification
Law should be removed.
272.
In November
2006, Mr John Sawers, FCO Director General, Political, wrote
to
Mr Blair
from Baghdad, where he had just spent three days:
“… the pace
of the insurgency hasn’t slackened. The Shia put the blame squarely
on
Ba’athists/Saddamists,
who they think we under‑estimate. They are convinced
that
the former
regime’s security and intelligence officials are the driving force
behind the
attacks on
the coalition, the Shia, and government officials, with the aim of
creating
mayhem and
an opportunity for them to return to power as the only ones capable
of
restoring
order. The level of concern has gone up sharply, with reports of
Ba’athist
intimidation
on the streets of Baghdad … The relative weight of the Ba’athists
in the
insurgency
isn’t easy to divine, but it is clear that both the Shia and the
Kurds still
215
Email
Sharif to Shokat, 10 November 2006, ‘Re: De‑Ba’athification: key
components of a fair law’.
216
Minute
Sawers to Prime Minister, 13 November 2006, ‘Iraq’.
51