Hmmm. Maybe firing all of them might have been a mistake.

[mburbank]

U.S. Moves to Rehire Some From Baath Party, Military

By Robin Wright, Washington Post Staff Writer

The United States is moving to rehire former members of Iraq 's ruling Baath Party and senior Iraqi military officers fired after the ouster of Saddam Hussein , in an effort to undo the damage of its two most controversial policies in Iraq, according to U.S. officials.

The U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, proposed the policy shifts to broaden the strategy to entice the powerful Sunni minority back into the political fold and weaken support for the insurgency in the volatile Sunni Triangle, two of the most persistent challenges for the U.S.-led occupation, the officials say. Both policies are at the heart of national reconciliation, increasingly important as the occupation nears an end.

"Iraq has a highly marginalized Sunni minority, and the more that people of standing can be taken off the pariah list, the more that community will become involved politically," said a senior envoy from a country in the U.S.-led coalition.



Sooo, then, Bremmer's wholesale firing of all of them (especially while they were still armed) was a bad move right? A mistake? And this is policy change to correct that mistake. Because that's what you do when you make a mistake, you correct it, admit it, and try to fix it.