- Some of Saddam's once-feared henchmen may be re-hired
by the coalition in Iraq to help stabilise the increasingly volatile
country,
US officials said today.
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- The Iraq Army was disbanded and top military and police
officials sacked after Saddam's regime was toppled.
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- But the move created a power and security vacuum which
some diplomats believe may be partly to blame for the growing number of
insurgent attacks against coalition troops.
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- According to the Washington Post, the top US
administrator
in Iraq, Paul Bremer, proposed re-hiring former Baath party officials and
military officers to bring the once-dominant Sunni minority back into the
political fold.
-
- Such a move, he hopes, would reduce support for the
insurgent
attacks in the so-called Sunni Triangle, where coalition troops have faced
tough resistance.
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- The move comes amid persistent reports that Britain and
the United States are split on military tactics in Iraq and the diplomatic
way forward.
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- It has been claimed that some British diplomats believe
the decision to disband the Iraqi Army actually worsened the security
situation
in Iraq after the ousting of Saddam.
-
- However, Prime Minister Tony Blair, speaking in New York
last week, insisted that the move was "absolutely necessary"
to "begin a new Iraq".
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- A senior envoy from a country within the US-led coalition
told the Washington Post: "Iraq has a highly marginalised Sunni
minority,
and the more that people of standing can be taken off the pariah list,
the more that community will become involved politically."
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- Details of the new proposal are hoped to be completed
by the end of the week.
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- According to the newspaper, the plan has the support
of Downing Street.
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- The policy would apply not just to the military, but
also to government positions in science and medicine, from which Baathists
were also expelled.
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- Under the proposal the coalition would reinstate about
11,000 teachers and hundreds of professors who were sacked after Saddam
was toppled.
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- Already more than half a dozen generals from Saddam's
military have been appointed to top jobs to help organise the new
Army.
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- "This strategy] is again reaching out to the Sunnis
and making them feel part of the process and investing them in the process
while also not alienating the rest of Iraq, particularly the Shiites and
the Kurds," a senior administration official familiar with the
discussions
told the newspaper.
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