Former Baathist officials fear danger still lurking

Baghdad: First, the attackers beat the retired Baghdad municipality worker, his wife and their daughter in their home last weekend. Then they beheaded them.

The only clear motive people could think of for such brutality was that the dead man had belonged to Saddam Hussain's Baath Party.

"They didn't care if he was a good or bad person," his cousin Abu Abdullah said a few days later. "His job had required him to be a Baathist. He was never into it like others. He never hurt anyone."

Ahmad Jawad Hashim's killing was a cruel reminder of the dangers lurking for Iraqis who belonged to the Baath Party, at a time when "de-Baathification" legislation, meant to promote reconciliation among the country's Shiite religious elite and those purged from government, slowly makes its way into law.

The fear of a grisly end at the hands of revenge-seeking Shiite militias, criminal gangs or even an old workplace rival is shared by many who belonged to the Baath Party, a symbol of state oppression that at its peak counted anywhere from 2 million to 6 million members - including many Shiites like Hashim who joined the party so they could advance professionally.

The original order to banish those belonging to the top levels of the Baath Party was US overseer L. Paul Bremer III's first decree after the 2003 invasion.

In the years since, the Iraqi government's de-Baathification committee insists it has reinstated or given pensions to most of the 140,000 Iraqis fired under Bremer's law, but observers and diplomats say the purges persisted, with people fired for political reasons or because they didn't pay bribes to the right people.

Hashim, the retired engineer, had gone into hiding in 2003 after Saddam's regime collapsed. But, encouraged by his friends to go back to work, he reappeared in Baghdad later that year.

By all accounts, his story was the kind touted as proof by some US and Iraqi officials that the commission welcomed people back.

Evidence is clear

Hashim returned to the waterworks department at the Baghdad municipality, where he stayed until his retirement four months ago. After retiring, Hashim hadn't received any warning that someone wanted him dead.

He spent his days at street markets and visiting friends. "He had no fears. He was living a normal life," said Abu Abdullah, who confessed he worried about reprisals against the family.

Since Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's government of "national unity" was sworn in May 2006, one of his Cabinet's goals was to reform the de-Baathification process. But evidence of continued purges is clear.

One such case was Abdul Aziz Karagolly, a top official in the Agriculture Ministry. He was notified July 25, 2006, that he had been fired by the de-Baathification committee. He believed he was dismissed because he did not belong to Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr's movement, which then controlled the ministry.

"This country can ill afford a purge of talented and experienced people like Abdul Aziz who are willing to contribute everything to the reconstruction of Iraq,'' said Roger Hartley, an Australian adviser to the Agriculture Ministry in 2003.

"The new law is scarcely generous towards the Baath, but this may not matter if Iraq's Shiites use it to exclude Sunnis regardless of their true alignment with the Baath and do not continue to exclude far more Baathists than the law really calls for," said Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq expert with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But the dangers remain for those who were fired. They worry they might be punished for their previous affiliations.