U.S. to Form New Iraqi Army and Pay Soldiers of Old One
nytimes.com
"At the same time, Mr. Slocombe said the occupation powers had also agreed to pay, for an indefinite period, the salaries of up to 250,000 idled Iraqi army officers following weeks of angry demonstrations that culminated in the shooting death of two Iraqi officers during a rally last Wednesday."
I guess Bremer figured it out at last. He is not as dumb as I thought he was. There is hope, if he keeps showing this kind of flexibility. Paying them for "an indefinite period"? That's a lot more generous than I had proposed.
U.S. to Form New Iraqi Army and Pay Soldiers of Old One
By PATRICK E. TYLER
AGHDAD, Iraq, June 23 — The American and British occupation authority said today that it would create a new Iraqi army of 40,000 soldiers over the next two years that would be far smaller than Saddam Hussein's armed forces.
A senior American official, Walter Slocombe, said the three-division force of light infantry would operate without an air force and would guard the country's borders and key installations. At the peak of Mr. Hussein's power, Iraq had an army of more than 20 divisions with 400,000 soldiers and 2,600 tanks and an air force of more than 300 fighters and bombers.
"This country was grotesquely over-militarized," Mr. Slocombe said, adding that "most people in the old army will not be able to continue their military careers."
Mr. Slocombe, who is supervising the dissolution of Mr. Hussein's armed forces, said the new Iraqi military would theoretically be able to defend the country from invasion. Mr. Hussein had sized his military to match his ambition to defend the Arab world from Iran's revolution under the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and to dominate the Persian Gulf region.
The size of Iraq's first postwar military seems to reflect the reality that 140,000 United States and British troops will serve indefinitely as guarantors of security in the region.
At the same time, Mr. Slocombe said the occupation powers had also agreed to pay, for an indefinite period, the salaries of up to 250,000 idled Iraqi army officers following weeks of angry demonstrations that culminated in the shooting death of two Iraqi officers during a rally last Wednesday.
The announcement appeared timed to avert another confrontation with hundreds of thousands of career military men who challenged last month's decree disbanding the Iraqi army, a move that left the professional officer corps to fend for itself in a devastated economy.
American military commanders rushed riot control gear this weekend to their troops guarding the Republican Palace, where the top American administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, and a large contingent of American and British staff are quartered. The gates to the palace, now more heavily defended than during Mr. Hussein's time, have become the primary venue for Iraqis to vent their grievances.
On May 26, Mr. Bremer disparaged demands by Iraqi officers for back pay, stating that his decree disbanding the army had not thrown 400,000 regular army people out of work.
"They were thrown out of work by something called the freedom of Iraq," Mr. Bremer said at the time, noting that many had "dissolved, been killed or gone home" before he formally disbanded the Iraqi army.
His thinking at the time was that some officers would get pension payments or one-time termination payments. Today, it was apparent that the occupation powers had reconsidered this view and were ready to pay "stipends" nearly approximating the salaries that most officers have not received in five months.
In the weeks since Mr. Bremer's decree, a number of Iraqi political figures as well as American military officers have urged him to address the officers' demands to avoid driving them into opposition against the occupation powers.
The standoff with the army officers has coincided with the rise of small-scale military attacks against American forces in central Iraq. And while United States officials have not accused cashiered officers of organizing the attacks, the appearance of armed resistance raised concerns that some army officers might resort to violence if their demands were not met.
Mr. Slocombe said that applications for a new, 40,000-member Iraqi army would be accepted starting next week.
Mr. Slocombe declined to comment on how the Kurdish militia forces, which now comprise as many as 70,000 pesh merga fighters, would be treated as the new army is created. He said the Kurdish militias were a "separate" question, but did not elaborate.
Last month, the top American military commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, exempted the Kurdish militias from his order that all Iraqis should turn in their heavy weapons. The two main Kurdish factions, the Kurdish Democratic Party under Massoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan under Jalal Talabani, command sizable paramilitary forces armed with tanks, artillery and heavy machine guns.
General McKiernan said that because Kurdish forces were cooperating closely with American and British forces, they would be exempted for now from any disarmament order. But Kurdish officials have said their expectation is that their forces will eventually be integrated into a new Iraqi army. The schedule for such integration appears still to be an open question. |
