Demobilised Iraqi officers threaten suicide attacks

A band of Iraqi army officers took to the streets of Baghdad Monday to protest their plight since the dissolution of the army by the US-led administration in Iraq, warning of further protests and even suicide bombings if their situation was not reconciled.

"We demand the speedy establishment of a government, the return of security, the rehabilitation of public institutions and the payment of wages to all soldiers," former general Saheb al-Mussawi said in an address to around 100 former officers in central Baghdad.

"If our demands are not respected, next Monday will mark the date of the break between the Iraqi army and people on one side and the occupiers on the other," he said in reference to US-led coalition troops.

"All soldiers and their families will protest peacefully in Baghdad and other towns on Monday from 10 am (0600 GMT)."

The protesting band of officers carried banners saying "Better to have the throat slit than revenues confiscated. The Iraqi army demands its rights!", and "The Iraqi army is the army of the people and the nation!"

"Death, death so Iraq can live!" they chanted.

Former colonel Ahmed Abdullah told AFP: "If our position is not settled, we threaten to take up arms."

"We are soldiers used to combat and we have volunteers for martyrdom," warned former lieutenant colonel Ziad Khalaf in reference to suicide bombers.

"We will take back by force what we have lost by force," Khalaf said.

The civilian occupation administration headed by Paul Bremer announced Friday that Saddam's former army and vast security apparatus, along with the defence and information ministries, had all been abolished.

A "non-political" army is to be created in its place.

"Those not enrolled in this new army, what will they do? How will they feed their family?" Abdullah asked.

Ramiro Lopes da Silva, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, told journalists that the United Nations was drawing up a plan to rehabilitate jobless soldiers.

"We have to come up with something simple to absorb a potential source of destabilisation," da Silva said.

"If not, we reinforce the lawlessness and will raise banditry not only in Baghdad but in rural area," he said.

Da Silva cited as an example the UNDP's Iraq Reconstruction and Employment Programme (IREP), which aims to find work for 250,000 Iraqis in six months.

Meanwhile, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, expressed his hope Monday that the rooting out of Baath Party members from public office was done "cleanly and fairly".

"It has to be a clean, clear and fair process," da Silva told journalists in Baghdad.

"What's needed is a fair process. Criminals have to be punished and the others rehabilitated," he said, noting that many civil servants during Saddam Hussein's rule were obliged to become members of the Baath Party.

"Iraq's civil courts could be rehabilitated to judge the criminals," da Silva added.

The UN official also warned of the risk of getting rid of some of the top officials in state institutions who he said were needed to relaunch Iraq's administrative and economic machines.