By Waleed Ibrahim BAGHDAD, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Iraq's Presidency Council is unlikely to sign off on a new law that would give thousands of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party their old jobs back, Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi said on Thursday. Iraq's parliament passed the bill on Jan. 12, winning praise for making headway on the first of a series of key measures that Washington has sought to promote national reconciliation. Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, said the bill was flawed because it meant many people appointed to fill jobs after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003 would be forced out of those positions to allow ex-Baathists to return. "We cannot regard this law as a step in the national reconciliation process," Hashemi told Reuters in an interview. "It is not only me who objects to signing it, but the whole Presidency Council," he added. The law, which allows former Baath party members to rejoin the civil service and military, is one of Washington's "benchmarks" meant to reconcile majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs who were dominant under Saddam. The Presidency Council has refused to sign off on other bills but blocking the Baathists law would be a big blow for Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government, which has made little progress on other key benchmarks. Iraq's Presidency Council consists of President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, Shi'ite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, and Hashemi, who is a senior member of the main Sunni Arab political bloc in Iraq. It performs a similar role to an upper house or Senate in a bicameral parliament and must sign off on all laws passed by Iraq's 275-member Council of Representatives, or parliament. Washington introduced "de-Baathification" under U.S. administrators after the 2003 invasion to rid the military and public service of senior Baath party members. It later acknowledged that the measures went too far and asked Iraqi leaders to ease them so that middle- and low-ranking Baathists could return to work. Many ex-Baathists have already rejoined the military and the civil service in the absence of the law and there have been suggestions that they could also be purged a second time. Hashemi said the Presidency Council was coming under pressure from both former Baathists who want their old jobs back and from those currently in the positions. "The council will call for amendments for a new law," he said. "It is very necessary. Talks are going on." U.S. President George W. Bush praised the "Accountability and Justice" bill passed on Jan. 12 as an important step towards reconciliation and a sign that Iraq's leaders understood that they must work together. The benchmark laws are meant to draw disaffected Sunni Arabs closer into the political process and away from Iraq's insurgency and sectarian bloodshed that killed tens of thousands and threatened to tip the country into all-out civil war. But Maliki's government was hit by the walkout of the major Sunni Arab bloc last August. Ministers loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al Sadr quit the government several months earlier. (Writing by Paul Tait; editing by Sami Aboudi)
A police officer stands guard during search operations in Kerbala, 110 km (70 miles) south of Baghdad, January 30, 2008. Two suspected insurgents were arrested and weapons confiscated during a raid ...
