The big news out of Iraq today is of course the passage of the 2010 budget, but since the final document (including the all-important annexes) has been a little slow to emerge, we might as well have a look at another interesting item in the meanwhile, published this morning by Sumaria TV.
Sumaria, which was also the first to publish the names of the 511 banned candidates for the 7 March parliamentary elections, claims to have obtained the revised list of candidates for the de-Baathification board that the government is eager to put in place in order to improve the legal façade of its de-Baathification process. According to the sources, the new names are Kamran Rasul and Bakhtiyar Umar from the Kurdistani list, Haydar Hanun of Daawa, Falah al-Shanshal of the Sadrist list (he has lately been the most outspoken parliamentary supporter of Lami/Chalabi’s de-Baathification policy), Muhammad Salim and Mahdi Salih listed as Iraqi National Alliance (presumably ISCI or close to ISCI since the Sadrists are listed separately), and Abd al-Razzaq Hassan of Tawafuq.
The apparent removal of Walid al-Hilli, Maliki’s preferred candidate to head the commission, is interesting. Other than that, it has to be said that with the exception of Shanshal, these aren’t individuals about whom a great deal is known. But if the party affiliations are correct as reported (the candidature of Shanshal, at least, has been confirmed by other sources) then this is bad news indeed. Blunt, straightforward ethno-sectarian and party-based muhasasa with 4 Shiite Islamists, 2 Kurds, 1 token Sunni Islamist and, as usual, no one representing the secular nationalists. The board was reportedly not voted on today even though Shanshal had pressed for such a vote.
Iraq and Gulf Analysis 