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New Iraq army officers head for training in Jordan
By Raju Gopalakrishnan
Reuters, Jordan Times, Tuesday, December 30, 2003
BAGHDAD — The first batch of officers in the new Iraqi army being set up by the US-led coalition was sent for training on Monday to neighbouring Jordan.
Unlike in President Saddam Hussein's old army, the officer cadets were drawn from all communities in Iraq. Many were bemused at being sent to their much smaller neighbour for training, but said they were keen to play a role in rebuilding Iraq.
“We want to establish a new Iraqi army and this will be the basis for a new democratic Iraq,” said Didar Abdulrahman Mustafa, a former Kurdish peshmerga fighter who has volunteered to join the new force.
He was among 560 cadets being flown from Baghdad to Amman in 10 US C-130 Hercules transporters.
US-led forces disbanded Iraq's army after Saddam's ouster, leading to furious protests by dismissed soldiers. Washington wants to set up a smaller force to gradually take over more of a role in security. Senior officers under Saddam are barred from serving in the new army.
“They (the Jordanians) are our fraternal brothers,” said Hasen Atiya Sueer, a 28-year-old who was an officer in Saddam's army.
Iraq has been wracked by violence since US-led forces toppled Saddam in April. Jordan is a key Arab ally of the United States and having the Jordanian military train the cadets would cost less than sending them out of the region.
Commanders
The cadets, all volunteers, are mostly junior officers who served in the old army. Some are fighters from Kurdish groups that ran an autonomous zone in northern Iraq during the last decade of Saddam's rule.
The 11-week training course begins on Jan. 4 and the men who pass will become platoon and company commanders in the Iraqi army, which aims to have 27 battalions, or about 30,000 men, in place by September.
The occupying forces say they want to move the new Iraqi army away from the old ethnic and sectarian divisions.
Saddam's army had thousands of generals, mostly from his Sunni Muslim minority. Troops were largely from the Shiite majority, but there were hardly any Kurds. Few of the Shiites or the Kurds made it to officer ranks.
Major Trey Johnson of the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team said the coalition had deliberately chosen officer cadets from all groups. Despite the old divisions, he said a one-week induction course near Baghdad had gone well.
“It's amazing that they have such cooperation and such a good belief in one Iraq,” Johnson said.
One of the cadets, queuing up to enter a C-130, was asked whether he was a Sunni or a Shiite.
“There is no difference,” said the man, 25-year-old Ahmed Abdul Al Wahid. “That was the attitude of the old regime. We have to cooperate with each other.”
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03. |
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