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News number: 8811191694

17:10 | 2010-02-08

World

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Mowaffak Rubaie Warns against Baathists' Return to Power

TEHRAN (FNA)- Former Iraqi National Security Advisor Mowaffak Rubaie warned of countrywide chaos and uprisings in case former members of the Baath party regain power in Iraq.



"If issues do not move in a desired direction, the Iraqi people will play their role and we will witness popular uprisings in a majority of Iraq's cities," Rubaie said in an exclusive interview with FNA.

Elsewhere, he blasted US attempts to bring Baathists to power, and stressed that the move by Washington will be a big strategic mistake.

Noting that the US does not have the required knowledge about the Baathists, Rubaie said, "Americans believe that Baathists' return to power would end violence in Iraq and this is one of their biggest mistakes."

They think that the Baath party has been transformed into a democratic party which believes in democracy but this is not true, he added.

Rubaie also lashed out at an Iraqi court ruling which annulled the ban on Baathists' participation in different elections in Iraq, and termed it "a political and illegal decision made outside the authority and domain of decisions adopted by the country's three branches of power", implying that the decision has been dictated on Iraq by the US.

Meantime, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed on Saturday not to allow the US to meddle in the decision-making about the ban on election candidates with suspected links to the Saddam era's Baath Party.

In January, Iraq's Justice and Accountability Commission blacklisted some 511 candidates over connections with the outlawed Baath Party of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

The United States was fast to express concern over what it called a threat to Shiite-Sunni reconciliation, sending Vice-President Joe Biden to Baghdad to talk with Maliki about the election row.

The election tension reached a fresh height this week when an appeals court overturned the ban on Wednesday and reinstated most of the blacklisted candidates.

The ruling, though denounced by the government as unconstitutional, was hailed by US Ambassador Christopher Hill who argued that through lifting the ban Iraq would hold "a credible election".

The comments enraged officials in Baghdad, where Maliki said he would not let Hill go beyond his position as a diplomat and that his country must not bow to US pressures.

"We will not allow American Ambassador Christopher Hill to go beyond his diplomatic mission," al-Maliki said late Thursday in a statement published on his political coalition's website, adding that the ban on Baathists and their sympathizers must be implemented.

Iraqi election officials have asked Iraq's highest judicial authority for a final ruling while Maliki has also called for a special parliamentary session on Sunday to discuss the decision of the country's top court.

The Baath Party has been banned since the fall of Saddam Hussein. It is blamed for violence and bloodshed both before and after the US invasion of the country in 2003.