The United Nations envoy to Baghdad said on Wednesday he would present a positive picture of progress in Iraq in a report to the Security Council despite earlier having serious misgivings about reconciliation efforts. U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said the passing of a key law allowing former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party to return to government jobs had changed what had been a pessimistic view of progress in a crucial year for Iraq. “At the beginning of the year we were worried … we were genuinely concerned by the lack of progress on national dialogue,” de Mistura told Reuters by telephone. “Today that has substantially changed. It has changed our mind from being worried or from being pessimistic,” he said.