A law banning tens of thousands of Baath Party members from holding government and military jobs is to be revised this week, allowing them to return to their jobs or receive pensions.

It was passed after the US toppled Saddam Hussein and has been blamed for fuelling the insurgency and undermining postwar reconstruction attempts.

“It is one of the darkest aspects of Iraq,” Iyad Allawi, the former Prime Minister, said yesterday. “It has caused mass emigration from the country and deprived the Establishment of trained manpower.”

The revision of the law was one of the steps Zalmay Khalilzad, the outgoing US Ambassador, listed as crucial for healing sectarian wounds and quelling an insurgency that has left thousands dead.

Many of the senior Baathists and army officers affected were Sunnis. Most either left the country or joined guerrilla groups. The amendment is one of several measures designed to stop civil war. They include talks with insurgents and legislation to divide Iraq’s oil resources equally.

The Bill, sponsored by Nouri al-Maliki, the Shia Prime Minister, and Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish President, would offer former Baathists immunity from prosecution after a three-month period in which claims could be made against them. Only those found guilty of crimes would be excluded from future office. “The aim is to ensure the application of justice and equality and the preservation of rights in the context of national reconciliation,” Mr al-Maliki’s office said.

The US decision to ban the Baath Party and disband Iraq’s Army are regarded as two of the Bush Administration’s biggest mistakes in Iraq. Critics of the law say that many of the party members joined up only to secure better jobs.

The de-Baathification committee has complained that the Bill “turns a blind eye to the feelings of millions of the victims of the Baath Party and pays no heed to their emotions and rights. This will not lead to reconciliation.”

Dr Allawi, himself a former Baathist, accused the committee members of abusing their power to stack the judiciary and seek revenge. He also accused the Government of doing too little to rein in militias. Unless it took advantage of the relative lull in violence caused by the US military’s increased presence in Baghdad, he said, President Bush’s planned troop “surge” would fail.

Admiral William Fallon, the new Commander of US Forces in the Middle East, said that the surge was the last shot at making Iraq work.

— The US Senate endorsed last night a March 31, 2008, target date for the withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq, moving Congress a step closer to a showdown with President Bush.

By a vote of 50-48, the Senate defeated an amendment that would have stricken the withdrawal language from a $121.6 billion funding Bill, a final vote on which is expected this week. Democrats in the Senate need 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster, and even then Mr Bush has promised to veto the Bill.

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