Iraq easing bans on Saddam-era Baath members

BAGHDAD, Jan 17 (Reuters) The Iraqi government confirmed plans to ease restrictions on former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party, a senior official said today.

The move, two weeks after Saddam was hanged, is a key demand of the Sunni Arab minority that dominated the ousted leader's administration and of the United States, which has been urging the Shi'ite-led government to offer concessions to undermine the Sunni insurgency.

''The committee has already completed this draft and sent it to the parliament for a vote,'' said Ahmad Chalabi, the secular Shi'ite former deputy prime minister who oversees the Debaathification Committee.

''This happened with the coordination of the prime minister. It is part of the national reconciliation process,'' he told a news conference, adding that the National Security Council would discuss the measures to revise the Debaathification Law.

Chalabi was a key figure among Iraqi exiles opposed to Saddam and played a significant role in discussions in Washington that led to the US invasion of 2003.

Hundreds of thousands of Baath party members were excluded from public employment after the fall of Saddam. Many were Sunnis and many complained that their membership did not represent support for Saddam but was simply a necessary fact of career advancement.

Critics of the debaathification process overseen by the US occupying forces, say it deprived Iraq, especially the security forces and intelligence apparatus, of talent and fostered resentment among Sunni Arabs who found themselves unemployed.

Chalabi said at least 1,500 people in Saddam's home province of Salahaddin, north of Baghdad, had been removed from the banned list.

Legal action would also be taken against local governors and other officials who refused to accept the return of some former Baathists to public office.

While insisting that former members of Saddam's party who committed crimes will be punished, Shi'ite Islamist Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said many others may return to work.

REUTERS MS MIR RAI2107