BAGHDAD — More than 20 employees of Iraq's Ministry of the Interior have been arrested on allegations that they were plotting to revive Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party, government officials said Thursday.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf told reporters that 23 people, most employees of the ministry's traffic department, have been arrested over the past five days but he dismissed suggestions they were plotting a coup.

A security official put the figure at 25 and said a brigadier general in the traffic police was the highest-ranking figure. Most of the others are low-level ministry employees, he said.

Another security official said those in custody were believed to have links to al-Awda, or "Return," a Sunni underground organization founded in 2003 to try to restore Saddam and the Baath party to power.

Khalaf denied that the group had links to al-Awda. The U.S. military referred all inquiries to the Iraqi government.

Iraq's 2005 constitution bans the Baath party and any group that uses its symbols and ideology "regardless of the name that it adopts."

Some Iraqi politicians also expressed doubt that the plotters were trying to overthrow the government.

The Baath Party ruled Iraq for 35 years until Saddam's regime was ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Outlawing the Baath party was the first official act of the U.S.-run occupation authority which ruled until June 2004. The purge of thousands of Baath party members from government jobs cost the country the services of skilled people who knew how to run ministries, university departments and state companies.