By Jim Muir
BBC News, Baghdad
**US Vice-President Joe Biden is visiting Iraq in an attempt to mediate in a political crisis over candidates for the crucial general elections in March.**More than 500 have been banned so far, on suspicion of loyalty to Saddam Hussein’s dissolved Baath Party.
The dispute has caused bitter recriminations among Iraqi politicians.
The Americans are eager that the March elections should be as smooth as possible, as they will start pulling out all their combat forces soon after.
So they see the row over disqualifications as a threat to the national reconciliation they are desperate to foster.
The majority Shias in particular are deeply opposed to rehabilitating former Baathists, while among many Sunnis there are certainly lingering loyalties and sympathies.
One of their leading politicians, Saleh al-Mutlak, is on the list of 511 would-be candidates who have been banned from running, although he is already an MP and head of a parliamentary bloc.
Mr Biden is believed to be proposing that the cases for disqualification should be re-examined after the elections, and that candidates should be asked to denounce the Baath party.
That could provide common ground for a compromise, but some of the Shia factions, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, have made it clear that they resent outside interference.
The issue is deeply divisive.
President Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd, has questioned the legality of the commission which issued the disqualifications, referring it to the supreme court for a ruling.