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US works on Iraqi army plan after confrontation

US troops in anti-riot gear train outside the US administration office in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sunday. US anti-riot squad will be deployed for the first time following the killing of two Iraqis during a protest last Wednesday. PHOTO: AP

Iraq's US-led administration began to lay out plans yesterday to create a new Iraqi army and pay off disgruntled members of Saddam Hussein's dissolved armed forces.

Anger among unpaid soldiers boiled into violence last week when US troops shot dead two protesters in a crowd that was stoning a military convoy as it drove into the administration's headquarters in Saddam's former palace compound in Baghdad.

US administrator Paul Bremer disbanded the armed forces, security agencies and ministries of defense and information last month, laying off an estimated 400,000 people, as part of a drive to rid Iraq of Saddam's Baath party legacy.

"Within two weeks we will start inducting soldiers into a new Iraq army, which in time will secure Iraq's borders," Bremer told a business conference in Jordan on Sunday.

A US official, Walter Slocomb, was due to give details of the new army and payoffs to soldiers in the old one at a midday news conference in Baghdad. Officials have previously spoken of creating an army corps numbering about 40,000.

Former Iraqi soldiers, many of whom put up no serious fight against the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam on April 9, are furious at being sacked, and say promised redundancy payments are inadequate or have failed to materialize.

They have staged several protests outside the palace compound, though last Wednesday's was the first in which US troops at the gates had fired on demonstrators in Baghdad.

The fatalities have prompted US combat forces to train with unfamiliar non-lethal riot control equipment.

A score of American soldiers with visors, protective leg pads, plastic shields and wooden batons went through their paces outside the palace compound on Sunday evening. A truck with what looked like a water cannon on top was parked nearby.

"We're not just saying we'll do better next time," Captain John Morgan, a spokesman, said. "They're doing some training, they're reacting, they're getting better at what they do."

Apart from facing protests by laid-off state workers, US troops have frequently come under fire in and around Baghdad from what US officials describe as diehard Saddam loyalists.

A soldier was killed and one was wounded in a grenade attack on a military convoy south of Baghdad on Sunday, bringing to 19 the number killed by enemy fire in Iraq since President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

A gas pipeline fire was still burning in Iraq's western desert yesterday, 36 hours after a blast that Oil Ministry officials blame on sabotage. They said a nearby oil pipeline, originally thought to have been hit, was undamaged.

A correspondent at the scene said the fire had subsided from Sunday's fierce blaze, but flames and black smoke were still pouring from the stricken pipeline.

"We have started to assess the damage inflicted on the gas pipeline near Hit," Nabil Lamuza, head of planning and studies at the Oil Ministry, said in Baghdad.

"This is an act of sabotage that will directly hurt the Iraqi people. It will reduce supplies of gas to main power stations," he said, adding it would take three to five days to fix damage at the site, 140km northwest of Baghdad.

The US military, which reported the explosion and fire late on Saturday night, has not confirmed it was sabotage.
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