Iraq's top five political leaders announced an agreement Sunday night to release thousands of prisoners being held without charge and to reform the law that has kept thousands of members of
Saddam Hussein's political party out of government jobs.
The agreement was publicized after several days of meetings between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite; President
Jalal Talabani, a Kurd; Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni; Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite; and Massoud Barzani, president of the semiautonomous Kurdish region.
The announcement clears the way for the fractious Iraqi government to ease restrictions on former
Baath Party members, one of the political initiatives
President Bush considers key to Iraq's success. The agreement, reached not quite two weeks before Bush is to receive a progress report on Iraq, could face a stiff battle in Iraq's divided parliament.
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Although details of the proposed revisions to the de-Baathification law were unclear late Sunday, advisers to the political leaders said the changes would allow former members of Hussein's party to hold civil service jobs unless they had been high-level leaders or were accused of committing a specific crime. The new law would replace Iraq's Supreme National Commission for De-Baathification with a new committee dedicated to prosecuting former party members accused of crimes.
Iraqi Leaders Reach Accord on Prisoners, Ex-Baathists
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