Hammorabi is concerned that Bremer's decision to re-integrate some of the old Ba'athists into the new government in Iraq is a mistake. Bremer's doing it because he wants to pull in some Sunni support and optimism before we drop the hammer on that goddamned city of Fallujah. And because, in the long run, all the major groups in Iraq need to feel like we're going to treat with them fairly.
I certainly won't disagree with Hammorabi, but aren't we forgetting people like Werner von Braun, Albert Speer, and Kurt Waldheim, whose own Nazi pasts managed to be manageable in a different era? Oh, well. I'm not going to put myself in the posture of resorting to the counter-example of ex-Nazis (even if played by Peter Sellers), but a lot of that was expediency in a time when opposition was something less than futile. Can these bastards be rehabbed? Bremer's gambling on their change of heart.