WASHINGTON — Serious new divisions have emerged between the Bush administration and its Iraqi allies over the Baghdad government's refusal to enact a reform that the White House considers crucial to its new strategy for bringing the country's violence under control.
In spite of a commitment by Iraq's prime minister to its passage, legislation that would ease rules barring former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from government service has been blocked by the country's Shiite-dominated parliament.
U.S. officials repeatedly have expressed confidence that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki would work for passage of "de-Baathification" reform. However, they have begun to express disappointment over the Iraqi stalemate, saying that the reform remains a top political priority and is essential to convince the country's Sunni minority that it can receive fair treatment in the new system.
One U.S. official said the reform, far from advancing as promised, was "moving backward" and "almost dead in the water."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and State Department official David Satterfield, her top Iraq advisor, paid an unannounced visit to Baghdad last weekend for consultations with top Iraqi officials. But on this issue, aides said, they came away discouraged.
Administration officials also have expressed disappointment with the work of a special Iraqi panel on de-Baathification headed by Ahmad Chalabi, the U.S.-trained financier who became controversial as an advocate for the invasion of Iraq.
The dimming prospects for reform hold troubling implications for the administration's new strategy on Iraq, which relies heavily on political reconciliation between Sunni Arab and Shiite Muslims as a way to stem the sectarian violence that has gripped the country for the last year.
President Bush ordered 21,500 additional combat troops to Iraq last month as part of a new U.S. strategy to establish order in Baghdad. The goal is to allow the government to achieve political progress and ethnic reconciliation, Bush and his aides have said.
The administration considers de-Baathification reform, along with legislation dividing the country's oil wealth, to be the two most important political steps the country can take to reconcile its warring factions. U.S. military officials have been buoyed by early results of the security push, but the reconciliation legislation has yet to advance.
