Amnesty for Baathists was first proposed by Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, who served from May 2004 until legislative elections in 2005. Allawi, himself a former Baathist, proposed an amnesty plan for Sunnis who had taken up arms against the Americans after the invasion in 2003.
In June, 2006, Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki proposed an amnesty plan for Sunni insurgents. Under the plan, imprisoned Sunnis who had committed political violence (but not terrorism, nor other criminal activities) would be pardoned and released.
An element of the proposed amnesty plan is the pardon of those who attacked U.S. troops on the grounds of "national resistance." Most American politicians have not warmed to the idea of pardons for those who have killed U.S. soldiers. Sunnis, who are a minority population in Iraq, lost power when the Saddam Hussein's Sunni regime was felled. Those who took up arms against the Americans considered it an act of legitimate war against an occupying force.
