Basem Ridha, an Advisor to Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, speaks during an interview with AFP at his office in Baghdad on March 9, 2008. Ridha, who fled Saddam's Iraq when he was 17, said the Maliki administration is treating both Shiite and Sunni ex-Baathists fairly. Five years after a US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein and then hanged him, hundreds of members of his former Baath Party are returning to public life but regret the end of his iron-fisted rule. AFP PHOTO/SABAH ARAR