Five years later...

... will it be too little, too late?

Iraq's parliament adopted legislation Saturday on the reinstatement of thousands of former Baath party supporters to government jobs, a key benchmark sought by the United States as a step toward national reconciliation.

The dismissal of thousands of Baath Party supporters from these jobs after Saddam was toppled in 2003 deepened sectarian tensions between Iraq's majority Shiites and the once-dominant Sunni Arabs, who saw the de-Baathification process as targeting their community.

The strict implementation of so-called de-Baathification rules also meant that a lot of senior bureaucrats who knew how to run ministries, university departments and state companies ended up out of work in a country where 35 years of Baath party rule and extensive government involvement in the economy had left tens of thousands of party members in key positions.

The Bush administration initially supported the rooting out of Baathists from important jobs, but claimed that Iraqi authorities went beyond even what the Americans had contemplated for de-Baathification measures.

That, coupled with the disbanding of the Iraqi army, threw tens of thousands of people out of work at a critical time in Iraq's history and fueled the Sunni insurgency.

During Donald Rumsfeld's tenure, there were many comparisons between Iraq and the 'denazification' of Germany. What too many people overlooked was the number of former Nazi officials the Allies worked with to stabilize what became West Germany. In any totalitarian regime, even middle managers become tainted with party ties--advancement in their society will demand it. In our rush to show how quickly we could move Iraq toward a 'western-style democracy,' we made pariahs out of virtually all the locals who had the skills and potential inclination to help us. It's one thing to sideline and put on trial the ringleaders. But what we did was make insurgents out of trained corporals whose only real crime was to be in uniform while Saddam was in charge. Out of work, with no pay, they were easy recruits for those trying to stir the pot of the insurgency. And while we were trying to get the infrastructure up and running, many Iraqis who knew the antiquated systems best were told "no thanks" because of their party affiliation. Is it so hard then to understand why they might have chosen to start blowing up power stations instead?

The only way we could have changed Iraq quickly with a small force, as Rumsfeld wanted, was with maximum local help. We pretty much did everything we could to make sure that would never materialize. The question now is, how much of that professional class is ready to answer the call after five years? Grudges die hard anywhere in the world...