Last night I went to the book launch of a new edition of Dreaming of Baghdad
by Iraqi writer and political activist Haifa Zangana.

I have only just started reading this fine book - which she wrote originally 20 years ago
and in which she remembers her time as an activist in Baghdad in the 70's.

During this time she suffered terribly and was jailed and tortured by Saddam's police but her deep affection for and conviction towards Iraq as a nation shines through.

I will discuss the book later once I have finished reading it. The launch was organised by our friends at Arab Media Watch.

It was during the readings and the question and answer session afterwards that I was reminded of the appalling mess George Bush's generals and people like "diplomat" Paul Bremer, the man left in charge of reconstruction, left in Iraq.

In particular - the theory that getting rid of Saddam meant you had to get rid of his Baath Party and anyone loyal to it or remotely connected to it.

Haifa, by the way, spent much of the 1970 and onwards actively opposed to Saddam's Baath Party - so I wondered what she thought of debaathification..

After her readings last night one member of the audience asked her how she felt about
the appalling debaathification process that took place after the 2003 invasion.

Remember it was the policy of US troops to strip any member of the Baath Party
- which Saddam had hijacked when he took the Presidency - of their post.

This policy Ignored one of the most important doctrines - always
use the defeated regime's resources and security infrastructure after an invasion -if possible. To not do so can only mean trouble - and it did.

It put countless armed Army and Police officers on the streets in the Sunni triangle of Central Iraq out of work and extremely embittered by the humiliation.

Out of work and embittered senior Army and Police officers under an occupation
. . .equals organised violence. It's almost an exact science.

But far worse it meant that any Iraqi associated with the Baath Party - orginally a pan-Arab
ideal born in Syria and which was hijacked by Saddam - became the target for Iraqi and US troops.

The armed Shia Badr Brigade had files of hundreds of thousands of Baath members
- many of whom were killed at home after being hunted down or at checkpoints.

And the paranoia about Baath association that this bred - meant all trace of the Baath
may have gone forever so we will never learn from it.

As a journalist who went to Baghdad throughout this time the debaathification policy always puzzled me - I could never see how it helped anyone and could only see that it made them suffer - or die.

Here's what Haifa had to say about this- and remember she was tortured for her opposition to the Baath. You will see that you cannot underestimate an Iraqi's sense of nationalism when it comes to witnessing the disintegration of his or her country.

"On the subject of the debaathification I am absolutely against it.

"There were one million Iraqis who were registered as Baathists but registration does not
mean they were killers. They had to have ways of living.

"Debaathification legaslised the process of killing and its legacy was on a level that had been unheard of - with bodies thrown in the street.

"There were lists which the Badr Brigade had at checkpoints - it was a kind of homemade process.

"I was looking for books about the previous regime and they were subject to the same kind of debaathification.

"It was a kind of rear guard action because if people had books like this and pictures of Saddam at home they might be seen by the US or Iraqi soldiers, so they burned the books.

'"This means there is little record now and it is absolutely stupid because it means they have worked against themselves.

"This was a kind of terrorising process. It is a horrible process and it should not have been done.

"The debaathification is depriving us of understanding the social , economic and political changes that have affected millions of our people over 35 years of baath rule..."

Haifa also reminded us of how many buildings and artefacts, legacies of Iraq's history have been destroyed byt he war there.

Yet close to the gates of Tikit - near to where Saddam was born in Owja- there is a permanent statue of an American soldier leaning down and helping a needy Iraqi child.

Quite ironic that - since when I last visited an American base in Tikrit, where in the canteen the troops where being offered amongst other goodies lobster - yes Lobster -we were warned not to feed the Iraqi children on our way out of the base.

"It only encourages them," an American soldier told me as he saw me tucking a couple of apples into my bag.

I wondered at the time if he had considered that giving them food or the means to get it might take away the need to beg.

I will let you know how I get on with the book.

Dreaming of Baghdad is published by The `Feminist Press, At the University Of New York