Sunnis won’t rejoin government after deal

Hours after Iraq’s political leaders declared a deal to return former Baathists to government jobs, Iraq’s most senior Sunni Arab leader said on Monday it was too small an olive branch for Sunnis to rejoin the government.

The Sunni leader, Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, welcomed the “great achievement” of a compromise to ease measures imposed by the American occupation authority in 2003 to stop senior Saddam Hussein loyalists from returning to senior posts. But Hashimi said nothing had changed regarding the Aug. 1 decision by his Iraqi Islamic Party and others, which comprise the Iraqi Consensus Front, to quit the government.

MercuryNews