Iraq reinstates 20,000 Baath army officers

Iraq on February 26 reinstated 20,000 former army officers dismissed after the U.S.-led invasion, a landmark gesture at reconciliation ahead of the March 7 elections. The 2003 order by Iraq's then-American governor L. Paul Bremer to dissolve Saddam's 400,000-strong army, the largest in the Middle East on the eve of the 2003 invasion, is widely seen as a key factor that fed the alienation many Sunnis felt toward the new Iraq. "This measure has nothing to do with elections, rather it is related to budget allocations," In recent years, thousands of officers from the disbanded army have trickled back to service mainly officers from the rank of colonel down.

Sunnis and many secularists in the Shiite community are so eager to overturn the dominance of the Shiite religious parties that have controlled Iraq's government for five years.