US fires state workers to rid Iraq of Saddam links

BAGHDAD - Iraq's US governor, wielding powers newly endorsed at the United Nations, fired hundreds of thousands of state employees today as part of what he called a drive to rid the nation of links to Saddam Hussein's era.

But many Iraqis criticised 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 UN Security Council vote to scrap sanctions imposed during Saddam's era.

Clearing the way for the United Nations to begin fleshing out a role in Iraqi reconstruction, UN sources said Secretary-General Kofi Annan had named UN human rights chief Sergio Vieira de Mello as his special representative for Iraq.

Striving to halt the lawlessness that has gripped Iraq since they invaded two months ago, US forces announced plans to try and disarm the millions of civilians now carrying weapons.

The problem of lawlessness was underlined when US forces said they may have seized perhaps half a billion dollars worth of gold bars in a truck heading out of the country.

Hours after the United Nations ended 13 years of sanctions and soothed pre-war divisions by endorsing sweeping powers for US and British officials to run Iraq and its oil trade for the next year, US administrator Paul Bremer abolished the defence 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 US-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 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."

The overall US commander in Iraq, General David McKiernan, said US troops planned to cut the number of weapons in Iraqi hands. The plan, including am arms amnesty, would be implemented as soon as Washington approves it -- "within a matter of days".

"The purpose of the programme is to reduce the threat posed by automatic or heavy weapons and small arms carried in public," McKiernan told a news conference in Baghdad.

"The intention is not to completely disarm the Iraqi population. That is neither practical nor necessary."

The end of sanctions brought celebratory gunfire to the southern city of Basra, an oil industry hub, but meant little to many in Baghdad.

"Nothing will make me happy now but a normal life with electricity, water supply and security on the streets," said Ahmed Hassan, a street vendor.

Yet without UN action, the United States would have been in a legal no man's land, discouraging businesses from trading with Iraq, which has the world's second largest oil reserves.

Traders expect tankers to start exporting oil from storage tanks on the Turkish Mediterranean coast within weeks.

In London, more than 1000 building firm representatives pressed their case for work at a London meeting organised by US construction giant Bechtel. Outside, a handful of opponents of the US-led war in Iraq chanted: "Vultures, vultures."

Bechtel, chosen by the US Agency for International Development as prime contractor to rebuild Iraq in a deal that could be worth up to US$680 million over 18 months, said it would consider qualified Arab firms, including ones from Iraq, as it carves out contracts.

US troops on Thursday seized what appeared to be US$500 million worth of gold bars from a truck near Qaim on the Syrian border, the US Central Command said in a statement.

The 2000 18kg bars could be gold, it said. Two people in the truck said they had been paid US$350 to drive it.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq