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Article: Rice praises steps toward national reconciliation in Iraq
- Article from:
- AP Worldstream
- Article date:
- January 15, 2008
- Author:
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U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday that Iraq's national reconciliation has moved along "quite remarkably," citing a new law that lets thousands of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party reclaim government jobs or pensions.
Rice, who split off from U.S. President George W. Bush's Mideast tour for a surprise visit to Baghdad, said the Iraqi parliament's approval Saturday of the U.S.-sought benchmark law was a first step and showed that last year's "surge" of American forces was paying dividends.
"It is clearly a step forward for national reconciliation _ a step forward for healing the wounds of the past, and it will have to ...