By Ibon Villelabeitia
Reuters, 03 May 2006
BAGHDAD - The commander of Iraq's ground forces said on Wednesday he would not tolerate soldiers' protests against their deployment orders after a near-mutiny at the weekend by army recruits.
In an embarrassing episode for the U.S.-trained army, hundreds of young Sunni Arabs staged a rowdy protest during a graduation parade in Anbar province on Sunday after learning they would be posted away from their home towns.
"These people joined the army and were assigned to one area but they bypassed the army's conditions. We don't need people who put their conditions above the army's conditions," Lieutenant-General Abdul Qader told reporters.
The incident, broadcast on Arab satellite television stations, illustrated some of the challenges faced by U.S. and Iraqi officials in increasing recruitment and retaining recruits among the Sunni minority to broaden the sectarian and ethnic mix of the army, which is fighting a largely Sunni insurgency.
Deploying battalions of Sunni troops would counter fears among Sunnis that the security forces are dominated by Shi'ites and Kurds hostile towards their community.
Sunnis were dominant under ousted leader Saddam Hussein and served in large numbers in his army but are now the backbone of the anti-government insurgency.
Key to U.S. President George W. Bush's plans to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq is building a capable Iraqi army that can fight the insurgency and sectarian violence that have pushed the country close to civil war.
During a ceremony to inaugurate a new command and control centre for the Iraqi army in Baghdad, Qader admitted the army should do a better job recruiting across sectarian lines.
"We need more people to be enlisted in our army. The Iraqi army is for all Iraqis: Kurds, Arabs...It is the army to protect the country," he said.
ARMY BEING REBUILT
Most armies punish soldiers who desert, in some cases with courts martial.
However, the Iraqi army, being rebuilt from scratch since the fall of Saddam, is struggling to attract recruits in the face of unrelenting insurgent attacks and allows soldiers to leave without punishment.
Under army regulations, if a soldier is absent for five or more consecutive days, his unit can terminate his contract. He should then turn in his uniform and equipment.
The policy has been criticised in private by U.S. military commanders eager to see Iraqis take over more responsibilities.
Iraqi security officials say stricter discipline would discourage recruits, who already risk their lives by standing in line outside recruiting centres, which have become targets of suicide bombers bent on crippling government plans to boost recruitment in Sunni areas.
On Wednesday, a suicide attacker blew himself up among a crowd of men waiting to sign up to join the police in the western Sunni city of Falluja.
A few days before U.S. and Iraqi soldiers were to launch an offensive against rebels holed up in Falluja in April 2004, hundreds of Iraqi soldiers deserted.
An attempt to form a local Iraqi force to restore security as part of a ceasefire agreement failed when the so-called Falluja Brigade disintegrated and U.S. forces eventually took over the city in November that year.
Qader refused to say whether the recruits who held the protest on Sunday had been reprimanded, saying only that the Defence and Interior Ministries were investigating.
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Citation: Ibon Villelabeitia. "Iraqi general warns recruits against protests," Reuters, 03 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO357861.htm
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