Shafaq News
More than 260,000 Iraqis—including many who were not
even born when Saddam Hussein’s regime ended in 2003—are currently receiving
state salaries under the Political Dismissals Law No. 24 of 2005, a program
originally designed to compensate victims of political persecution.
With over 125,000 applications still pending and annual
costs exceeding 11 trillion dinars (approximately $8.4B), the Law has evolved
into a financial and administrative quagmire, raising urgent questions about
misuse, nepotism, and the erosion of merit-based governance.
The Law reinstates individuals dismissed for political,
ethnic, or sectarian reasons during the period from July 17, 1968, to April 9,
2003. Article 1 outlines its scope: those who left their jobs due to migration
or displacement outside Iraq; those arrested, detained, or imprisoned by the
authorities of the former regime; those forced to discontinue studies at Iraqi
universities; those unable to assume their appointed positions; and those
referred to retirement before reaching the legal age.
The framework covers civilian, military, and internal
security personnel and provides legal justification for including relatives up
to the fourth degree in entitlement claims.
By the Numbers
Official data from the Politically Dismissed Persons’
Affairs at the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers highlights a
steady expansion of state employment under the program. In March, 1,004 new
appointments were recorded, followed by 569 retirements in June and 523 in
August. July saw a notable surge with 1,900 new hires, while September and
October added 1,100 and 1,000 appointments, respectively.
On average, around 1,300 people are hired each month,
compared with roughly 500 retirees, meaning the inflow more than doubles the
outflow. This pattern has produced a net increase of nearly 3,912 employees in
2025 alone, excluding the 125,000 pending cases, underscoring how the Law has
steadily inflated the public payroll and contributed to institutional growth
beyond initial projections.
Based on an average annual salary of 30 million IQD per
employee (approximately $22,900), the cost for current and pending
beneficiaries is roughly 11.55 trillion IQD annually (about $8.8 billion).
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani noted last year that salary expenditures
had reached 90 trillion dinars (approximately $68.7 billion), up from 60
trillion, indicating that the state now spends more than one-third of its
annual budget on wages.
Analysts emphasize that this surge surpasses combined
spending on the Ministries of Health and Education, highlighting the
disproportionate weight of political reinstatements. Political dismissals alone
now account for over 15% of Iraq’s total recurrent expenditure.
Attempts by Shafaq News to obtain official commentary
from government and parliamentary bodies proved unsuccessful. However, informal
remarks from officials suggest that, with the parliamentary term drawing to a
close, the issue may be deferred to the next legislature, while others linked
the lack of public discussion to ongoing preparations for the upcoming November
11 parliamentary elections.
Read more: Who are Iraq’s ‘Red Card’ holders?
Chaos Buys Jobs
Operating under the General Secretariat of the Council
of Ministers, a special committee usually reviews claims and determines
eligibility. Remarkably, even two decades later, the committee continues to
accept applications, including from individuals born in the late 1980s who had
never been employed before 2003.
An official at the Political Dismissals Directorate
explained to Shafaq News that these applicants are not considered dismissed in
the direct sense, “but they are included under the entitlement based on kinship
up to the fourth degree with a politically dismissed relative, as permitted by
Law.”
In early October, the head of the Martyrs Foundation met
with the Political Dismissals Directorate to launch a new application form for
relatives of martyrs up to the second degree. The move triggered backlash in
online groups of dismissed employees.
“The former regime used to persecute families up to the
fourth degree, and now entitlements are limited to only the first and second.
Where is the justice?” Faleh Jassim from Wasit province wrote on Facebook.
Among the group members are young people in their
thirties pursuing claims as “politically dismissed.” The highest concentrations
of claimants are in Baghdad, Basra, and Wasit, suggesting political and administrative
preference in certain regions.
The controversy extends to educational privileges.
Beneficiaries receive exemptions from competency exams and preferential
admission to postgraduate studies—measures that political analyst Ghaleb
al-Daami criticized as “undermining educational standards.”
“Many files include people who are not eligible—some
even used to persecute the dismissed during the former regime,” al-Daami
indicated, citing documented cases where individuals accused of terrorism or
other crimes were reinstated under the law.
He further noted that while the Law itself is
legitimate, it has become a channel for wasting public money, “like many Iraqi
laws tailored to political interests,” estimating that the real number of
politically dismissed individuals is no more than a quarter of the total.
“The rest of the beneficiaries represent an
administrative and a financial inflation that weakens state institutions,” he
warned.
A knowledgeable source disclosed to our agency that some
people previously dismissed for non-political reasons—including theft, sexual
assault, or embezzlement— forged documents to reclassify their cases as
political. Internal investigations revealed at least 200 cases where
misclassified employees and forged kinship claims allowed ineligible
individuals to regain government positions.
Crisis Gets Shield
“We reinstate around 4,000 people each year, appoint
6,000 new ones, and refer 3,000 to retirement,” a senior official at the
Political Dismissals Directorate reported to Shafaq News, stressing that the
Law clearly covers anyone who was sentenced or harmed, as well whose relatives
up to the fourth degree were affected, for political, ethnic, or sectarian
reasons.
He confirmed that hundreds of thousands of cases remain
pending and that applications for martyrs’ relatives of the first and second
degrees are still being accepted, cautioning that the directorate also issues
rulings against those “who falsely claim political dismissal.”
Yet official data is not accompanied by detailed
financial reports outlining salary costs or the funds allocated for new posts,
leaving the file surrounded by questions.
In recent months, parliamentary committees have
discussed reviewing the Law, but no session has been scheduled to debate its
scope or cost. Quiet political support for keeping it in effect remains strong,
as the parliamentary Committee for Martyrs, Victims, and Political Prisoners
continues to advocate expanding eligibility and creating new positions rather
than setting a clear deadline.
However, international watchdogs, including Chatham
House, have highlighted in 2024 that politically motivated hiring is one of
Iraq’s main corruption features, obstructing administrative reform and draining
fiscal sustainability. Transparency International and the World Bank have
likewise warned that unchecked reinstatement programs risk turning public
employment into a political instrument rather than a service mechanism.
As Iraq’s wage bill continues to climb and new
generations file claims under a Law rooted in the past, the question now
confronting policymakers is not how to preserve justice for the genuinely
wronged, but whether the state can afford to sustain a legacy that increasingly
defines its present.
Written and edited by Shafaq News staff.
