Iraqi PM invites Saddam officers to army

BAGHDAD, Dec 16: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said today Iraqi army officers of all ranks sacked after the U S invasion in 2003 would be allowed to reapply for their posts in the new army.

Maliki, a Shi'ite, issued the invitation, a gesture towards disgruntled minority Sunnis, at a national reconciliation conference in Baghdad aimed at easing sectarian violence that UN officials estimate causes more than 100 deaths a day.

Shortly after the US invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, US administrator Paul Bremer quickly dissolved the Iraqi army, a decision experts consider a miscalculation. Many of its members joined the ranks of the Sunni insurgency.

The Defence Ministry has recruited former officers of Saddam's army in the past but limited the invitation to junior ranks. Maliki's invitation was the first extended to all ranks.

''The new Iraqi army is opening the door to former Iraqi army officers. Those who do not come back will be given pensions,'' he told a conference of Kurdish, Sunni Arab, Shi'ite and secular politicians.

The military has been training the new, 300,000-strong army as part of a plan eventually to withdraw its own 135,000 troops. Sunnis view the Shi'ite-dominated army with suspicion and there are doubts about its sectarian loyalties.

REUTERS