"Is The Baath Party Iraq's Resurrection?"

AP – A man holds his child as US soldiers walk past, during a routine patrol in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood …

More than 20 employees of Iraq's defense and interior ministries have been arrested on allegations they were plotting to revive Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party, government officials said Thursday.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Yassin Majid, told The Associated Press that 24 employees of the two ministeries were arrested on suspicion of "facilitating activities for terrorists and outlaws and officials of the former regime."

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf told reporters that 23 people, primarily traffic police officers, had been arrested over the past five days in a Baath party plot but he dismissed suggestions they were planning a coup.

Another security official put the figure at 25 and said a brigadier general in the traffic police was the highest-ranking figure. Most are low-level ministry employees, he said. The official, who has access to the investigative file, spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the matter to the media.

A third security official said those in custody were believed to have links to al-Awad, or "Return," a Sunni underground organization founded in 2003 to try to restore Saddam and the Baath party to power.

Iraq's 2005 constitution bans the Baath party and any group that uses its symbols and ideology "regardless of the name that it adopts."

Some Iraqi politicians also expressed doubt that the plotters were actively trying to overthrow the government.

"I think talking about a coup is an exaggeration," Abbas al-Bayati, a senior lawmaker of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, the largest Shiite party, told Al-Arabiya television.

He described those arrested as "a semi-organized group" but said the fact that they were trying to restore the Baath party pointed to shortcomings in Iraqi security in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Hadi al-Amiri, the head of the Iraqi parliament's security committee, told AP Television News that "reports speaking about a coup attempt are baseless. In fact, coups are usually carried out by the army and not by police."

The Baath party ruled Iraq for 35 years until Saddam's regime was ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Outlawing the Baath party was the first official act of the U.S.-run occupation authority that ruled until June 2004. The purge of thousands of Baath party members from government jobs cost the country the services of skilled people who knew how to run ministries, university departments and state companies.

In February, Iraq's presidency council issued a new law that allowed lower-ranking former Baath party members to reclaim government jobs.

The measure was thought to affect about 38,000 members of Saddam's political apparatus, giving them a chance to go back to government jobs. It also allows those who have reached retirement age to claim government pensions.

The Arab Socialist Ba'th Party (also spelled Baath or Ba'ath; Arabic: حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي‎) was founded in Damascus in the 1940s as the original secular Arab nationalist movement, to combat Western colonial rule. In Arabic, baʿath means renaissance or resurrection. It functioned as a pan-Arab party with branches in different Arab countries, but was strongest in Syria and Iraq, coming to power in both countries in 1963.

The Arabic word Baʿath means "renaissance" or "resurrection" as in the party’s founder Michel Aflaq’s published works "On The Way Of Resurrection". Ba'thist beliefs combine Arab Socialism, nationalism, and Pan-Arabism. The mostly secular ideology often contrasts with that of other Arab governments in the Arab world, which sometimes tend to have leanings towards Islamism and theocracy.

Inspired by a German social democrat slogan, the motto of the Party is "Unity, Freedom, Socialism" (in Arabic wahda, hurriya, ishtirakiya). Unity refers to Arab unity, freedom emphasizes freedom from foreign control and interference in particular, and socialism refers to what has been termed Arab Socialism rather than to Marxism.

The Baath party also had a significant number of Arabic-speaking Christians among its founding members. For them, most prominently Michel Aflaq, a resolutely nationalist and secular political framework was a suitable way to evade faith-based minority status and to get full acknowledgement as citizens.

After 1945, the traditional Arab Muslim elite failed to prevent the foundation of Israel and was not able to provide welfare and administrative standards comparable to the western world. The secular and highly disciplined Baath movement was seen as less corrupt and better organized. In multiethnic, multi-faith and highly divergent countries like Iraq and Syria, the Baath concept allowed non-Muslims, as well as secular-minded Sunni and Shia Muslims to work under one common roof.

In Iraq, the Ba'th party remained a civilian group and lacked strong support within the military. The party had little impact, and the movement split into several factions after 1958 and again in 1966. The movement was reported to have lacked strong popular support,[6] but through the construction of a strong party apparatus the party succeeded in gaining power.

The Ba'thists first came to power in the coup of February 1963, when Abd al-Salam 'Arif became president. Interference from the historic leadership around Aflaq and disputes between the moderates and extremists, culminating in an attempted coup by the latter in November 1963, served to discredit the party. After Arif’s takeover in November 1963, the moderate military Ba'thist officers initially retained some influence but were gradually eased out of power over the following months.

In July 1968, a bloodless coup brought to power the Ba'athist general Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. Wranglings within the party continued, and the government periodically purged its dissident members. Emerging as a party strongman, Saddam Hussein eventually used his growing power to push al-Bakr aside in 1979 and ruled Iraq until 2003. Although almost all the Ba'thist leadership had no military background, under Hussein the party changed dramatically and became heavily militarized, with its leading members frequently appearing in uniform.

   Though the secular Pan-Arab socialist Baath Party, corrupted under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, was unwisely banned by the US occupation forces and the current puppet Nouri al-Maliki government, there apparently are Iraqis that still hold the high ideals of the Baath Party. Allegiance to Baath Party principles would have a very positive impact in Iraq, as I see it. Gone would be the influence of Iran, Muqtada al-Sadr, and all other radical Sunni and Shite groups. Gone would be the Iraq's divisive Arab tribalism. Gone would be the discrimination against Arab Christians and Kurds. In my opinion, the Baath Party, without Saddam Hussein or some Saddam Hussein like military strongman, would truly be the renaissance or resurrection of Iraq, after the US invasion and occupation. The Middle East and Muslim world needs strong secular Muslim nations to counter the radical Islamic fundamentalists like al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Iraq should remove the ban on the Baath Party, in my opinion.

tags: iraq  baath party  nouri al maliki  saddam hussein  middle east  war  warpeace  bush  pan arab socialism