baathism is a vibrant, important subject there. people feel strongly about it, and we need to respect that, and we need to understand that in dealing with it we need to try to deal with it not as a fundamental issue that is reflected in the constitution, but deal with the question whether it was done with sufficient transparency and done outside the political scope. obviously, we had some concerns about it. we registered those concerns with the iraqi government. we are very active in making sure iraqis understood our views on this. and so we felt, for example, that there was scoring political points was a definitely a part of the controversy. yet i think it was very important for us to make clear to the iraqis that as they got ready for elections, they need to make sure that this baathist issue was handled in the context of the rule of law. so we have gotten through this issue now. it hasn't been easy, it is very upsetting to member -- to people who were excluded who don't feel that they should have been excluded, but we have moved

baathism is a vibrant, important subject there.eople feel strongly about it, and we need to respect that, and we need to understand that in dealing with it we need to try to deal with it not as a fundamental issue that is reflected in the constitution, but deal with the question whether it was done with sufficient transparency and done outside the political scope. obviously, we had some concerns about it. we registered those concerns with the iraqi government. we are very active in making sure iraqis understood our views on this. and so we felt, for example, that there was scoring political points was a definitely a part of the controversy. yet i think it was very important for us to make clear to the iraqis that as they got ready for elections, they need to make sure that this baathist issue was handled in the context of the rule of law. so we have gotten through this issue now. it hasn't been easy, it is very upsetting to member -- to people who were excluded who don't feel that they should have been excluded, but we have moved o

baathism is a vibrant, important subject there.eople feel strongly about it, and we need to respect that, and we need to understand that in dealing with it we need to try to deal with it not as a fundamental issue that is reflected in the constitution, but deal with the question whether it was done with sufficient transparency and done outside the political scope. obviously, we had some concerns about it. we registered those concerns with the iraqi government. we are very active in making sure iraqis understood our views on this. and so we felt, for example, that there was scoring political points was a definitely a part of the controversy. yet i think it was very important for us to make clear to the iraqis that as they got ready for elections, they need to make sure that this baathist issue was handled in the context of the rule of law. so we have gotten through this issue now. it hasn't been easy, it is very upsetting to member -- to people who were excluded who don't feel that they should have been excluded, but we have moved o