US Fires Iraq State Workers

24/05/2003| IslamWeb

Iraq's U.S. governor, wielding powers newly endorsed at the United Nations, fired hundreds of thousands of state employees Friday as part of what he called 'a drive to rid the nation of links to Saddam Hussein's era'. But many Iraqis criticized the move, saying under Saddam people hoping to get a job or advance in the government had to show loyalty to his Baath Party. Critics said the mass sackings could drive Saddam loyalists underground from where they could plot a return to power. In a sign Iraq was returning to the world fold, international companies jostled for contracts in oil and other industries, now free to trade after Thursday's U.N. Security Council vote to scrap sanctions imposed during Saddam's era. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told President Bush that Tokyo would take an "active role in the reconstruction of Iraq," a Japanese official said after the two leaders met at Bush's Texas ranch. Striving to halt the lawlessness that has gripped Iraq and hampered reconstruction efforts since U.S.-led forces invaded two months ago, the American military announced plans to try and disarm the millions of civilians now carrying weapons. U.S. forces also said they had seized a suspected 500 million US dollars worth of gold bars from a truck near Qaim on the Syrian border. Hours after the U.N. ended 13 years of sanctions and soothed pre-war divisions by endorsing sweeping powers for U.S. and British officials to run Iraq and its oil trade for the next year, U.S. administrator Paul Bremer abolished the defense and information ministries and military and security courts. "These actions are part of a robust campaign to show the Iraqi people that the Saddam regime is gone and will never return," his administration said in a statement in Baghdad. The order disbands the elite Republican Guards and regular army, suspends conscription, hands property of dissolved bodies over to the U.S.-led administration and dismisses all employees of the dissolved entities -- more than 400,000 of them. Defeat last month had already effectively destroyed the armed forces. The U.S. administration has also banned Saddam's Baath party and vowed to bar its leaders from future public office. It plans to rebuild a new Iraqi army from scratch. A critic of Bremer's action was Nabil Mammo, founder of Iraq Interest Watch, a group of apolitical professionals who stayed in Iraq under Saddam but were not necessarily supportive of him. "The Americans are driving the average Baathists underground to regroup to defend themselves. This could lead to the resurrection of the Baaths," Mammo said. "What we need is immediate televised trials for the (leadership) who the Americans have captured. This will expose the party and destroy it." **PHOTO CAPTION*** A U.S. Army soldier stands guard as his colleagues search an Iraqi car on the road to Falluja, 30 miles northwest of Baghdad, May 23, 2003. (Jamal Saidi/Reuters)