Ba'athists back in Iraq.(Insider Report)

Nationally syndicated talk radio host Michael Savage, an outspoken supporter of the Iraq War until recently, posed a fascinating question to his audience on April 22: Should the U.S. and its coalition allies restore Saddam Hussein to power in order to put down the growing insurrection there? Savage, who posted that question as part of an online opinion poll, repeatedly insisted that he asked it in all seriousness, reasoning that if Saddam could be kept "on a leash," his expertise in putting down rebellion would be of use to the coalition.

Of course, for more than a decade prior to his 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Hussein was "on a leash" of sorts as a favored client of Washington (and occasionally Moscow as well). After Saddam's statue was toppled in Baghdad last year, L. Paul Bremer, Washington's viceroy for Iraq, issued a decree banishing members of Saddam's Ba'ath party from leadership positions in the government, military and academia. With the country now convulsed in mass insurrections and the reconstituted Iraqi military unable (and largely unwilling) to re-establish order, the Bush administration "is moving to rehire former members of Iraq's ruling Baath Party and senior Iraqi military officers fired after the ouster of Saddam Hussein," reported the April 22nd Washington Post.

"Iraqi generals who fought for Saddam Hussein are being reinstated to strengthen the new U.S.-trained Iraqi army, half of whose soldiers mutinied or went home during fighting earlier this month," elaborated an on-scene report ...