Word: shied
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...central Baghdad, Iraq's often raucous Parliament did something out of character. It voted to pass an actual piece of legislation. Just over half of the 275 members of Iraq's parliament voted in favor of a new de-Ba'athification law after months of obstruction by hard-line Shi'ites, effectively rolling back the previous order set by the American administration...
Those employees were the backbone of the government - its experts and its technocrats. Their disenfranchisement fueled the flames of the brewing anti-U.S. insurgency. But Saturday's vote is an important step towards bringing them back into the fold and bridging the divide between the Shi'ite-dominated government and the Sunni minority that prospered under Saddam...
Even though the former Ba'athists are now allowed back to work, some Sunni Iraqis view government ministries as bastions of Shi'ite power, where Sunnis are unwelcome. The distrust goes both ways. Falah Shanshal, a Shi'ite MP suspects that the new law will "allow the Ba'ath party members to regain control of sensitive positions in the government. This we will not allow...
Saturday's vote may also hail the end to the political deadlock that started last August when the main Sunni Arab bloc pulled out of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government. On Monday a main Sunni bloc said it was prepared to return to Maliki's government, largely as a result of the vote on Saturday. But certain demands remain in place. Chief among them is the release of detainees...
...experience. The so-called de-Baathification of the Iraqi government after the fall of Saddam contributed significantly to the violent sectarian divisions of the country as well as to a collapse in the way the country was run. The new law is meant heal the rift between the Shi'ites who now dominate the government and the Sunnis who used to. "I come with an upbeat message," Bush said at the news of the passage of the Accountability and Justice law. It is, he said, "an important step towards reconciliation... an important sign that the leaders of that country must...