A report says the Baghdad government is seeking to bring members of the former Ba'ath Party into the process of national reconciliation.

The report, published by the al-Sabbah newspaper on Saturday, cites Iraq's Minister of State for National Dialogue, Akram al-Hakim, urging former members of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party to join the Iraqi government's draft plan for national reconciliation, and to help identify those responsible for abuses under the former Saddam Hussein regime.
Former Ba'athists should “move quickly to sort out the criminals who committed heinous crimes against the Iraqi people, regardless of their political party or rank in the previous government,” al-Hakim said.
The Iraqi government has lately been trying to bring former members of the Ba'ath Party into a 'national reconciliation' process.
The Ba'ath party members accounted for approximately 10 percent of the population before the party was banned once the U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein's government in 2003.
In July 1968, a bloodless coup brought to power a Ba'athist general -- Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. Saddam Hussein eventually used his growing power to push al-Bakr aside in 1979 and ruled Iraq until the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The Arabic word Ba'ath means renaissance or resurrection.
After the U.S. invasion, an Iraqi de-Ba'athification committee began work in 2004 and thousands of Ba'athists were ousted from their jobs in the public sector including schools and universities.
However, in January 2008, the Iraqi parliament passed an 'Accountability and Justice Law', which eased a ban on former Ba'athists and more than 100,000 former low-ranking party members have been allowed to return to work.
(Source: AJP)