Cleric vows to fight

A ban on Baathists is being lifted.
KUFA, Iraq (AP) -- A Shiite Muslim cleric threatened to launch suicide attacks if U.S. troops attack him and his forces in the holy city of Najaf.
Muqtada al-Sadr was speaking during prayers today in Kufa, another Shiite Muslim holy city few miles from Najaf. The area is mostly controlled by his Al-Mahdi Army militia, whose members have clashed with U.S. troops several times since their uprising began April 4.
"Some of the mujahedeen brothers have told me they want to carry out martyrdom attacks, but I am postponing this," al-Sadr said in front of thousands of worshippers. "When we are forced to do so and when our city and holy sites are attacked, we will all be time bombs in the face of the enemy."
Condemned bombings
He condemned suicide bombings Wednesday in the southern city of Basra that killed 73 people because they targeted Iraqi police and civilians.
U.S. forces are deployed outside Najaf, but their mission to capture or kill al-Sadr has effectively been put on hold while negotiators try to resolve the standoff. U.S. commanders say they have no intention for the time being of entering Najaf, the holiest Shiite city.
Al-Sadr is wanted in the April 2003 killing of a rival cleric.
In the holy city of Karbala, meanwhile, Shiite Muslim militiamen clashed with Polish-led coalition troops today, killing a Bulgarian soldier in the latest skirmish between followers of al-Sadr and coalition forces in the south, military officials said.
Also today, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq announced an easing of the ban on members of Saddam Hussein's disbanded party, a move that will allow thousands of former Baathists to return to their positions in the military and government bureaucracy.
Most Iraqi leaders welcomed the change, saying the strong purge had been a mistake from the start and fueled the anti-U.S. insurgency. The policy change, however, could face opposition, particularly among Kurds and Shiites who were brutally suppressed by Saddam and welcomed the purge of his followers.
Eradicating the Baath Party was a good policy, but its implementation needs overhauling, L. Paul Bremer, the top administrator, announced in an address on U.S.-run Al-Iraqiya television.
He said more military officers who served in Saddam's army but have clean records would be allowed to join the new army being constructed from scratch by the U.S.-led coalition.
Bremer's speech was aired with an Arabic voiceover. A transcript of his remarks in English was not immediately available.
On Thursday, the Bush administration said it intended to permit thousands of Iraqis who swore allegiance to Saddam's political machine to take themselves off the U.S. blacklist.
Still excluded
Only alleged criminals, expected to face trials, will remain automatically excluded along with the top four levels of Saddam's Baath party and the three most senior levels of ministries of the fallen leader's government, an official of the U.S.-led coalition had said in a telephone interview Thursday from Baghdad.
But other Iraqis who have been banned, including 14,000 discharged school teachers, will get their jobs back if they can make the case that they were party members in name only, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In addition, the process of appealing disqualifications will be speeded up so Iraqis can get rulings more quickly, the official said.
Also, Iraqis who served in Saddam's army, including generals and other senior officers, are needed for the new Iraqi army and will be absorbed at quickly -- provided they are found not to have engaged in criminal activity, the official said.
Gen. John Abizaid, the head of Central Command, disclosed last week that the military was reaching out to former senior Iraqi army officers to help shore up the struggling Iraqi security services
The policy of excluding Baathists was popular with some Iraqis, but Bremer also was receiving complaints that the appeals process was too slow and that too many people remained disqualified even for teaching jobs, the official said.
During a meeting Thursday with the Iraqi Governing Council, Bremer pointed to the education and health ministries as instances where former Baathists could make a contribution, an aide of Shiite council member Salama al-Khafaji said.
Pointed to difference
Al-Khafaji did not oppose the relaxing of the purge, saying there is a difference between "Saddamists, who were serving Saddam, and the Baathists who were not Saddamists. Those [Baathists] could be brought back," said the aide, Sheik Fateh Kashef al-Ghataa.
Also today, the head of a Japanese aid group brushed aside charges that aid workers were reckless for ignoring official advisories to leave Iraq, amid a national debate sparked by the kidnapping of five Japanese civilians in the Mideast nation.
Five Japanese civilians -- an aid worker, two activists, and two journalists -- were among a spate of foreigners kidnapped and held hostage in Iraq this month. All were released unharmed.
They came home this week to relief as well as criticism that they were partially to blame for ignoring a series of evacuation advisories issued by the Japanese government after war broke out in Iraq last March.
Michiya Kumaoka, president of the Japan International Volunteer Center, defended their presence in Iraq and said: "We take responsibility for our decisions."
"There's an unspoken understanding in the government that volunteer groups and journalists are going to enter war zones and that such warnings are mainly intended for travelers, tourists and business people," he said.
Kumaoka, whose group is supplying medicine to two children's hospitals in Baghdad, decided to pull out its only representative in Iraq only this month as fighting escalated across the country.