Miami Herald: Baath Party Remains Strong

[tomfodw]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/9614396.htm

Hussein's Baath Party remains strong

Even with former leader Saddam Hussein detained, Iraq's Baath Party is back in business, staging attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops and recruiting disenchanted Sunni Muslims.

BY HANNAH ALLAM
Knight Ridder News Service

BAGHDAD - By day, Iraqis loyal to Saddam's Hussein's much-feared Baath Party recite their oath in clandestine meetings, solicit donations from former members and talk politics over sugary tea at a Baghdad cafe known as simply ``The Party.''

By night, cells of these same men stage attacks on American and Iraqi forces, host soirees for Hussein's birthday and other former regime holidays and debrief informants still dressed in suits and ties from their jobs in the new, U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

Even with Hussein under lock and key, the Baath Party is back in business.

The pan-Arab socialist movement is going strong with sophisticated computer technology, high-level infiltration of the new government and plenty of recruits in thousands of disenchanted, impoverished Sunni Muslim Iraqis, according to interviews with current and former members, Iraqi government officials and groups trying to root out former Baathists.

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