MOSUL, Iraq – A dozen former leaders of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party have handed in weapons caches in northern Iraq to curry favor with the U.S. military and claim a role in a new Iraqi leadership, the commander of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division said.
“They’re coming to us, saying they want to be part of the new Iraq,” Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. “It has slowly sunk in that Saddam isn’t coming back.” . . .
On Monday, some of the men — whose names have not yet been made public — will publicly renounce their participation in the Baath Party at a regional headquarters of the 101st Airborne’s 1st Battalion in Talafar, south of Mosul.
Petraeus said he doubted the former leaders had taken a direct role in aiding the five to 10 anti-U.S. guerrilla cells operating in the region, and he characterized their decision to cooperate with the U.S. military as an opportunistic move to regain stature.
Sounds like more evidence of which way the wind is blowing.