De-baathification

From informing the Bush administration that Iraqis would welcome U.S. troops with flowers to urging a methodical and comprehensive de-Baathification program under which tens of thousands of people lost their jobs through guilt by association, she said, the errors in the exiles' counsel only mounted and multiplied.

Mr Maliki has worsened the situation by allowing and encouraging purges of Iraqi politicians in the name of de-Baathification and largely discontinuing the US-initiated policy of working with Sunni tribal leaders and their militias - the so-called Sons of Iraq - to isolate al-Qaeda.