Major News From Iraq: Iraqi Parliament Votes To Reinstate Baathists

This may not sound too exciting and certainly I'd like to have seen a pile of 30 or 40 al Qaeda in Iraq bodies as a wake up present but this really is significant. First of all because this was literally a UNANIMOUS vote of the Iraqi parliament. When's the last time you saw a unanimous vote in the U.S. House or Senate?
Secondly, this is key because it was a sincere and stated goal of the U.S. - we wanted the Baath supporters back in the government and now it will happen. These Baath supporters are the ones who knew how to run the departments of the government...how to get things done....let me put it this way, it's like a new college football coach taking over and he fires the entire old coaching staff including the water boy and the equipment manager. First practice of the new season, the new coach has players without helmets and shoulder pads because the equipment guy is gone and no one new knows where they keep the stuff!
It will be interesting to see how Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi spin some "yes, but it's such a minute move in a big picture" onto this.

Full story is here from Breitbart.

Iraq to Reinstate Saddam Party Followers
Jan 12 10:26 AM US/Eastern
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq's parliament adopted legislation Saturday on the reinstatement of thousands of former supporters of Saddam Hussein's Baath party to government jobs, a key benchmark sought by the United States as a step toward easing sectarian tensions.
The bill, approved by a unanimous show of hands on each of its 30 clauses, is the first piece of major U.S.-backed legislation approved by the 275-seat parliament. Other benchmarks languish, including legislation to divide the country's vast oil wealth, constitutional amendments demanded by minority Sunni Arabs and a bill spelling out rules for local elections.
The bill approved Saturday, titled the Accountability and Justice law, seeks to relax restrictions on the rights of members of the now- dissolved Baath party to fill government posts.
It is also designed to reinstate thousands of Baathists dismissed from government jobs after the 2003 U.S. invasion—a decision that deepened sectarian tensions between Iraq's majority Shiites and the once-dominant Sunni Arabs, who believed the firings targeted their community.
The strict implementation of so-called de-Baathification rules also meant that many senior bureaucrats who knew how to run ministries, university departments and state companies ended up unemployed 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.
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 burgeoning Sunni insurgency.
The Bush administration initially promoted de-Baathification but later claimed that Iraqi authorities went beyond even what the Americans had contemplated to keep Saddam's supporters out of important jobs.
With the Sunni insurgency raging and political leaders making little progress in reconciling Iraq's Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities, the Americans switched positions and urged the dismantling of de-Baathification laws.
Later, enacting and implementing legislation reinstating the fired Baath supporters became one of 18 so-called benchmark issues the U.S. sought as measures for progress in national reconciliation.
The legislation can become law only when approved by Iraq's presidential council. The council, comprised of Iraq's president and two vice presidents, is expected to ratify the measure.