US Decree Strips Thousands of Their Jobs (in Iraq)

[Dover]

US decree strips thousands of their jobs

Anti-Ba'athist ruling may force educated Iraqis abroad

Jonathan Steele
Saturday August 30, 2003
The Guardian


http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1032048,00.html


....Like many young Iraqi professionals, he (Dr. Kubaisy) joined the Ba'ath party several years before Saddam became its leader and turned Iraq into a one-party state. But under Order Number One, issued by Paul Bremer, Iraq's US administrator - the so-called "de-Ba'athification" decree - Dr Kubaisy's position as a professor in Baghdad University's college of medicine has ended.

When Baghdad University and Iraq's other colleges re-open next week, around 2,000 senior staff have been told to stay at home, Dr Kubaisy estimates. Although they were Ba'ath party members, none was connected to the former regime's security apparatus.

"It's collective punishment. It's conviction without any charge," Dr Kubaisy said yesterday. "I'm becoming a bit paranoid but I think the Americans intend to force Iraqi brains to go abroad".

Coalition officials argue that every Ba'athist has not been purged. Only those who held one of its top four ranks are barred from public service.
"The de-Ba'athification decree is the most popular thing we have done here," a senior coalition official said.
It was strongly promoted by Washington neo-conservatives like Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence, and his friend, Ahmed Chalabi, a businessman convicted in Jordan of fraud who is now a member of Iraq's governing council....> MORE

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

1. I haven't heard about this development before.... Good post!

<snip>
Prof Rawi said this violated the fourth Geneva convention. "An occupier cannot dismiss people from jobs, administer collective punishment, and discriminate against people on the basis of political belief".
<snip>
A additional influx of disinfrachised people will certainly add great stability to the land. WTF are we doing over there? It just keeps getting worse!

[Cheswick2.0]

2. I guess we really are bringing american democracy to Iraq

This is a mess

[eablair3]

6. yes, .. it's american democracy in action in Iraq

courtesy of the U.S. -- this was from a few months ago, but I thought it was just a prime example of the American style democracy and freedom that Bush and Co. are bringing to the Iraqis:

Occupation Forces Halt Elections Throughout Iraq

By William Booth and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, June 28, 2003; Page A20

SAMARRA, Iraq -- U.S. military commanders have ordered a halt to local elections and self-rule in provincial cities and towns across Iraq, choosing instead to install their own handpicked mayors and administrators, many of whom are former Iraqi military leaders

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A42905-2003Jun27¬Found=true

[librechik]

3. more brutish stupidity from the Butch administration

it never ceases to amaze me how these ivy league barbarians made it out of elementary school let alone into and out of Harvard. I guess they're just continuing their universal policy of anti-intellectualism. More likely it's a testosterone thing--they just HAVE to control; and a professor is tough for D students like them to control--so marginalize.

These are the folks who are "asking for help" in Iraq? Give me a break!

[priller]

9. Another very bad move

like firing the military, which is the first thing Bremer did once he took charge, creating resentment and hatred in 100,000 armed soldiers. Smooth move. It's becoming clearer and clearer that Jay Garner, despite his macho "chest puffing" statement, was fired not for incompetence but because he was listening to the State Dept (for example, he resisted firing the military). Bremer, on the other hand, seems firmly in the camp of the Neocons. This stupid decision will create yet another class of enemies to the US.

Look, if an idea is "strongly supported by Wolfowitz", then you know it's a stinker.

[Ilsa]

4. Important thread.

Thanks for the info and link.
:kick:

[Dover]

5. MORE on "De-ba'athification"

The de-Ba'athification of Iraq

On April 16, 2003, by order of Paul Bremer, Administrator of the Coalition Provision Authority (CPA), Husan was summarily dismissed, as were nearly 2,000 professors and technical staff from Iraq’s institutions of higher education.

CPA Order Number 1, the De-Ba'athification of Iraqi Society, “disestablished” the Ba'ath Party of Iraq and commanded that “full members” of the party be “removed from their positions and banned from future employment in the public sector.” The Order applies to:

• every national government ministry (education, industry, agriculture, trade, health, etc.),
• affiliated corporations,
• other institutions (e.g., universities and hospitals).

An estimated two million party members are associated with national ministries and other institutions such as hospitals and universities.


Punishment that undermines society

Article 33, Geneva Convention IV. No protected person (i.e. civilian) may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

“We are fighting illiteracy and they (the CPA) have thrown out the most literate,” Husan observes. “I don’t know how they are going to run this country or our civil service. We are highly trained people and our country needs us. You can’t ignore our contributions or the fact that we have lives and families.”

He adds: “We were persecuted under Saddam but hoped the future would be different. Our dismissal is collective punishment without a trial, and it contravenes the Geneva Convention. We were given $50 and our April salary of 300,000 dinars ($150), paid in notes that are not accepted at face value and are subsequently worth only 180,000 dinars ($90). We are suspected of being criminals. Many of us sit at home and don’t know what is in our future.”

..more >>
http://www.afsc.org/human-face/personal_stories/entries/071003.htm


and this is interesting (some sort of internal document?)
http://www.lem.gov.lv/files/Iraka/IAC%20Brief%2026%20June.ppt.

[Dover]

7. ...and this from a British commander in Iraq -

The commander of British forces in Iraq has admitted that keeping the peace is proving harder than winning the war against Saddam Hussein and complained that the US-led civilian administration is taking too long to get off the ground.

“We always knew we were going into the unknown and the aftermath would be less straightforward than the war, but it has turned out to be much more complex,” said Major-General Peter Wall in an interview at his office in what used to be the VIP lounge of Basra airport.

Speaking in the week when American troops in Baghdad opened fire on Iraqi soldiers demonstrating against the administration’s decision to disband the army, leaving 400,000 unemployed, Wall acknowledged that in British-controlled southern Iraq he was ignoring this policy.

“It was not just Saddam’s army,” he said. “Many of them were just conscripts.” He added that he had re-employed 13,000 former soldiers in militias to protect hospitals and other public buildings, and to act as river guards .

Wall denied any rift between the British and Americans over this policy, part of a controversial programme of “de- Ba’athification” under which all senior members of Saddam’s Ba’ath party are banned from holding state jobs. An estimated 30,000 people have been sacked as a result, many of them doctors, professors, head teachers, engineers and architects who, aid agencies say, are needed for reconstruction.

Wall acknowledged that he “had expected the civilian aspects would be significantly far more advanced by now”, but insisted: “We don’t regard Ba’ath party membership as an obstacle, rather on the contrary, for they are the people with the experience to run things.

“The majority of Ba’ath party members joined because they had to — in the judiciary, for example, all judges were members. Our challenge is to distinguish between those for whom it was a badge of convenience and those to whom it was an ideological commitment.” ...>>MORE
...>>
http://www.asylumnation.com/asylum/_r/showthread/threadid_30279/

[Melsky]

8. Bush really is the job loss president

here and abroad.

[leftchick]

10. 101 ways to ruin a country

and dumbass will do every one and invent a few along the way....

[lindashaw]

11. Using Saddam's spies is okay, just not his professors?

[realFedUp]

15. my thoughts exactly

hiring the thugs, firing the educated...

[Whoa_Nelly]

12. Wait a GD minute!

Is there some sort of a conspiracy link bewtween the US stripping Iraqis of jobs and the US selecting JP Morgan Bank to boost and stabilize the economy of Iraq? If Iraqis are stripped of jobs, albeit Ba'athists, IF those are the only ones effected by this move, and those who are denied work status have to go abroad to seek employment, then does that mean the US is going beyond occupation of Iraq and moving to completely own the arbitrary right to divide the spoils of the future profits of the Iraqi economy?

on edit: typo

[shirlden]

13. Yep !!!

Think you got it just right.

[shanti]

14. just like they did to the nazi intelligentsia

n/t

[Rose Siding]

16. Since they're civilians,

Doesn't it violate the Geneva Conventions?

edit- Not that that would mean anything in The New American Century but as a point of interest regarding a more civilized past.

[htuttle]

18. Actually, they didn't really do this to the Nazis

There was an attempt at 'denazification' after the war in both the US/UK and Soviet sectors.

In the US/UK sectors, they had former Nazi party members fill out extensive questionaires and were to be given interviews. The process dragged out so long, that they really only went over the lower level party members, most of which were reinstated, since a) they joined the party primarily out of economic necessity and b) the German economy didn't have a chance without them. The process unfortunately waned after a few years, and many higher level party members escaped any sort of scrutiny. It wasn't until the '60s and a 'second wave' of denazification (inside West Germany) brought many of these people to account.

In the Soviet sector, they were much more aggressive about purging former Nazi party members, tossing the majority of them out at first. Over the course of several years, many of these people (primarily the professional class, as in the West) did finally re-enter the economy in their former jobs.

In both cases, however, it was clear that since so many of them were essentially forced to join the party, and were also vital to any sort of economic reconstruction, that they couldn't (or shouldn't) just 'erase' these people with an edict, but they would have to find a way to reintegrate them somehow.

Here's one comparison of 'denazification' and 'debaathification' from May 2003:
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2003/may/24/opinion/20030524opi5.html

[Aidoneus]

17. US Announces Resistance-Recruitment Program?

:shrug:

The Mukhabarat is fine to enlist, but these civilian professionals are shunned..makes as much sense as anything else anymore.

[tlcandie]

19. Liked this the best ...

"...I think the Americans intend to force Iraqi brains to go abroad".

Reminds me of home...the average American's brains have fled the occupied territories! I am reading all the comments to all this outrageous news and it seems that we are all in such a state of shock that we have no words for all that is transpiring :( MOUNTAINS of crap happening daily! You can't keep up with all the crap this admin is dishing out ALL over the world. :crazy:

[joanski01]

20. Sounds like they are

going to turn Iraq into one big oil well. They hate us for our freedom, yeah!!! What filty rotten greedy pigs.