Baghdad, Apr 11, (VOI) – An Iraqi politician held "some leaders" responsible for the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution "legitimizing" U.S. occupation of Iraq, terming as "hard" the situation in the country five years after the Saddam Hussein regime was unseated.
"Due to foreign powers' pressures and mistakes by some Iraqi political leaders, the UNSC issued a resolution legitimizing the occupation," Hamid Majid Moussa, the secretary general of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), said in an interview with Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI), on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and the fall of the Saddam regime.
Moussa, whose party occupies only two of the Iraqi parliament's 275 seats, pointed out that members of the leading board formed after the fall of the Saddam regime did not make enough efforts to expand the political process, which encouraged the U.S. administration to secure an approval to set up an occupation government upon consensus in the UNSC.
The UNSC had issued resolution 1483 on May 22, 2003 considering Iraq as a country under occupation.
Moussa described Iraq's situation five years after the change as "hard," noting "the people are going through tragic conditions, and chaos is marking many aspects of life."
He said there are limited achievements, though.
"Security conditions are improving and there are relative achievements like the national reconciliation, pardon for detainees, the adoption of the accountability & justice law and the return of part of the former Iraqi army," he explained.
The Iraqi army had passed last month a draft law granting clemency for a number of Iraqi detainees in Iraqi and U.S. army jails in accordance with set conditions and controls. The law entered into effect after the Iraqi presidential board endorsed it on March 27.
The parliament also approved on January 12, 2008 the accountability & justice law after the government ratified it. The parliament's debaathification committee introduced some amendments before approval.
The accountability & justice law replaced the one on debaathification, enacted by the former U.S. civil administrator Paul Bremer, who led the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) that ruled Iraq after the former regime was toppled in April 2003 with the aim of banning any activities of the Baath Party, which ruled Iraq for more than 35 years.
"These are all positive matters but need more work. These successes would be fragile if more political, economic and service arrangements are not in place," said Moussa.
On those years' effect on the ICP's structure and general policies, Moussa replied that the fall of the former regime "has helped launch general freedoms in the country. The political parties, including the ICP, were able to practice their activities openly, re-organize themselves and re-connect with the masses."
"The period that followed the regime's fall was a breath of fresh air for the party's activities despite the tough conditions the country is going through," he noted.
Moussa, replying to a question on the party's stance regarding the U.S. military presence in Iraq, said the ICP was "against the war and in the same time one of the factors that drove away dictatorship. We acted under the slogan "no war, no dictatorship!"
He said the ICP has offered an alternative, which was "the unity of political powers, the army and the people for the sake of dictatorship, but this did not happen," adding "after the occupation of Iraq, we wanted to resume the building of our armed forces to be the material basis for the evacuation of occupation troops."
AE
