Why worry the most about Iraq's bio-chem-atomics when the problem with Iraq was less the mere existence of the programs than it was the regime and what it would do with them? While the allies fleece Iraq of Islamists, the country needs to be stripped of Ba'athist sympathizers, too. As these former henchmen of a brutal regime - from careerist peons to demon lieutenants - directly represent the recently defeated nightmare, their mischief is likely to be even more detrimental to societal normalization than the most gregarious extremist cleric. Robert Pollack has more:

Not surprisingly, the opposition groups now vying for power in post-Saddam Iraq are nearly unanimous on the need for de-Baathifcation--the exception being Adnan Pachachi, the aged ex-foreign minister favored by the State Department and other proponents of the Arab "statist quo." De-Baathification was the dominant theme as the Iraqi National Congress held its first formal press conference here on Tuesday. But the U.S. has yet to signal a clean break with Iraq's past. Within the strange beast that is ORHA--the coalition's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance--there is disagreement between Defense Department staffers on the one hand, and the State Department and the British on the other. The former aren't arguing for immediate and widespread purges, but say that after a revolution you have to move rapidly to set a new tone. The latter are willing to tolerate the return of former party members for the time being in the interests of "making the trains run." De-Baathification rates low on their list of priorities.

So far, ORHA officials have been making their own policies toward elements of the former regime on an ad hoc basis. The team working to return Iraqi TV to the air, for example, has decided it cannot bring back the old faces and will use new news presenters. The U.S. official in charge of the Health Ministry has taken a more lenient approach, allowing Baath members to return so long as they sign a statement saying they "expressly reject and denounce the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein and his regime." Ali Shinan, the former third-ranking official there, was given the top job on an interim basis, but resigned Tuesday amid protests.

"Everyone who was in the Baath Party up to the time of the fall of the regime at a high level is not clean," said a disgruntled doctor. His emphasis on "high levels" of the party reflects Defense Department thinking, and will likely be the core of any forthcoming de-Baathification policy. At the time of Saddam's fall, the Baath Party counted perhaps two million members, many of them perfectly decent people who made understandable compromises in the hopes of career advancement and a better standard of living. But the 30,000 or so drawn from all professions who made it to the party's three highest levels--"branch," "division" and "company"-- are more likely than not to have been deeply involved in implementing repressive policies.

Nor does de-Baathification require widespread prosecution, at least not immediately. Those implicated in serious crimes--the "deck of cards" and perhaps several hundred more--should face justice from a new government. But for the time being the majority of those 30,000 should merely be told to find a new life outside government or politics. The risks of witch hunts and false accusations are low, since Baath membership rolls are very public. Until very recently, of course, belonging was considered by some to be a great honor. For that reason, some suggest that a simple policy of asking returning government employees whether they belonged to one of Baath's three highest levels would be very effective.

De-Nazification wasn't completed to perfection - purges of any sort, however noble, are messy affairs - but the intention was inarguable. Saddam wasn't known as "The Vampire" for nothing; the Ba'athist corpse isn't dead until the Iraqis can sift through its ashes.