25 Iraqis Arrested For Conspiracy To Reinstate Baath Party

Wow...haven't heard of the Baath political party in Iraq since good old Saddam Hussein popped his head out of that spider hole in northern Iraq! The report here at Breitbart discloses that the Iraqis have arrested 25 Interior ministry members who were plotting to reinstate the outlawed Baarth party - here are the details:

At least 25 people working in Iraq's Ministry of the Interior have been arrested on allegations that they were involved in a plot to restore Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party, a government investigator said Thursday.
A brigadier general was among those taken into custody over the last three days, but most are low-level ministry employees, said the official, who has access to the investigative file.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the matter to news media.
Those arrested are accused of trying to recruit people to restore the party, the official said. The investigation is continuing and more arrests are possible, he said.

Now, with all the hullabaloo the past few days over the "shoe tossing" of President Bush in Iraq and the supposed "hero" status of the thrower, we can't forget the despicable status that Hussein still has in this country even after his execution many years ago. And at the same time, I see this development as just an inkling of some of the political fragility that will exist in Iraq for some time. I don't have a problem with the new pact with the Iraqis that we have for troop withdrawls but to think that the government of Iraq isn't going to go through a myriad of tests in those days, is pretty assinine. They will not only face challenges from al Qaeda and other regional terrorists but will see these kinds of plots popping up all of the time.

We cannot forget that there are TONS of Iraqis and outsiders who will do anything possible to destroy this lone example of a democracy in the Middle East.

Iraqi official: 25 accused in Baath party plot

BAGHDAD (AP) - At least 25 people working in Iraq's Ministry of the Interior have been arrested on allegations that they were involved in a plot to restore Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party, a government investigator said Thursday.
A brigadier general was among those taken into custody over the last three days, but most are low-level ministry employees, said the official, who has access to the investigative file.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the matter to news media.
Those arrested are accused of trying to recruit people to restore the party, the official said. The investigation is continuing and more arrests are possible, he said.
The U.S. military said it had no comment, and referred all inquiries to the Iraqi government.
The Baath Party ruled Iraq for 35 years until the regime was ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
The decision to outlaw the Baath party was the first official act of L. Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, and along with his order to disband the Iraqi army, it has been widely blamed for setting in motion the Sunni insurgency in the fall of 2003.
The strict implementation of so-called de-Baathification rules meant that many senior bureaucrats who knew how to run ministries, university departments and state companies were fired.
In February, Iraq's presidency council issued a controversial 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 would also allow those who have reached retirement age to claim government pensions.