Towards Changing De-Ba'thification Law.

PM Maliki and Kurdish President Jalal Talabani are sending to parliament a proposal to allow thousands more former members of Saddam's Ba'th Party to serve in the government. The plan would be an important step towards Shi'ite-Sunni reconciliation. Announcement of the plan by the PM's office on March 26 came just hours after Khalilzad gave his final news conference.

Changing the de-Ba'thification law was one of the US goals set for the government six months ago. Under the plan, which came shortly after meetings between Maliki and Sunni insurgent leaders and is an effort to back up his outreach with action, all Ba'thists would be able to collect their pensions. And thousands more former Ba'thists would be allowed to hold state jobs than under the current law.

Former Ba'thists who return to government would have to sign a pledge to refrain from making political statements about the current government. The law would set a three-month limit for Iraqis to bring claims against former Ba'thists with whom they have complaints.

Baghdad Sunnis Live In Ruin: Baghdad's Sunnis' is a world of ruined buildings, damaged mosques, streets pitted by mortar shells, uncollected trash and so little electricity that many people have abandoned using refrigerators altogether. The contrast with Shi'ite neighborhoods is sharp. Markets there are in full swing, community projects are under way and, while electricity is scarce throughout the city, there is less trouble finding fuel for generators in those areas. When the government cannot provide services, civilian arms of Shi'ite militias step in to try to fill the gap.

In A'thamiya, a mostly Sunni area, any semblance of normal life vanished more than a year ago. Its only hospital, al-Nou'man, is so short of basics that when mortar attacks hit the area last autumn, doctors broadcast appeals for supplies over mosque loudspeakers. There the sectarian divide makes itself felt in its deadly ways. Far more than in Shi'ite areas, sectarian hatred has shredded whatever remained of community life - pitting Sunni against Sunni as well as Sunni against Shi'ite. Anyone who works with the government, whether Shi'ite or Sunni, is an enemy in the eyes of the Neo-Salafis.

While that mainly makes targets of the Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi Army and police, the Neo-Salafis kill fellow Sunnis from ministries who come to repair water and power lines in Sunni areas. The result is that government workers of either sect refuse to deliver services to most Sunni areas.

Nasir al-Ani, a Sunni MP on a committee working on popular acceptance of the Baghdad security plan, says Neo-Salafi religious groups, known as takfiris, "have taken these Sunni areas as bases...[for] military operation. Now the ministries are trying to make services available, but the security situation prevents it. Part of the aim of the takfiris is to keep people disliking the government". It adds up to a bleak prognosis for Sunnis. Until the violence is under control, there is unlikely to be any progress.

It is hard to persuade Sunnis to take a stand against the violence when they receive so little in return. The New York Times quotes Maj Guy Parmeter, an operations officer for the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, of the US military, which operates in the Sunni areas on the west side of Baghdad, as saying: "We want to highlight that when the government is denying services to Sunnis, they are pushing them toward the Sunni extremists who attack the Shi'ite-dominated security forces. And when that happens, it makes it harder to deliver services to those areas".

Government leaders admit there has been outright obstruction on the part of some Shi'ite ministries. The Health Ministry, dominated by Shi'ites loyal to militant cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has failed to deliver needed services to Sunni areas. Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh says: "This is part of the lack of efficiency in the ministry, which didn't improve this year". He adds, however, that he does not see any remedy in the near term. But government officials also emphasise that many of the skilled Sunnis who used to keep the ministries going have fled, so the ministries are not delivering services to anyone. Again, security has to come first.

Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Shi'ite whose most recent role is to lead the committee working to win popular acceptance of the security plan, sees four problems plaguing Sunni areas: food distribution, electricity, fuel and health services. He says he might have found a solution for the first by ensuring that food agents have members of the Iraqi Army escort them to warehouses. The other problems are deeper and the solutions will take far longer to find. Day-to-day life for most Sunnis has become a nightmare of frustration, punctuated by the terror of being caught in the crossfire.

Sunni Baghdad now is made up of block after block of shuttered storefronts, broken glass and piles of rubble. By mid-afternoon in these areas, hardly a person is on the street. Many residents will not leave their areas to go to jobs or see a doctor for fear they will be kidnapped at a checkpoint.

Sunni areas, mostly in the west of Baghdad, were once roughly 70% Sunni and 30% Shi'ite, but those ratios have become more lopsided as Shi'ites have fled. Each area has its sad tale. In Amiriya, taken over by Neo-Salafis, the Americans and the militants have fought for more than three years. More recently, Shi'ite militiamen joined the fray, kidnapping and killing those they believed were collaborating with the insurgents. Now they have fled and been replaced by cells of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, threatening Sunnis who refuse to co-operate with them. They take over houses which families have fled and use them as bases to attack Iraqi Army and police checkpoints in the area.

The hazards on the streets have forced women to take over men's activities: food shopping, inquiring at state agencies and taking household belongings for repairs.