***** New York Times December 4, 2003 Iraqi Political Parties Will Form Militia to Work With American Forces By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 3 - The American-led administration in Iraq has agreed with leaders of the country's top political parties to create a militia group made up of troops picked in equal numbers by the parties, party officials and members of the Iraqi Governing Council said Wednesday.
The militia's responsibilities will include the gathering of intelligence on guerrilla activities and possibly conducting house raids, the officials said. It will have 700 to 1,000 members, they said, and will be split into groups under the command or guidance of American soldiers.
"They will use this force for quick operations," said Nushirwan Mustafa, the deputy to Jalal Talabani, who represents the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan on the 25-member Governing Council. "Until now, there has been a vacuum of security. In June, sovereignty will be transferred from the Coalition Provisional Authority to an Iraqi government. They should start now to build some security groups to take responsibility and take over security in the country."
Mr. Mustafa's party would be one of seven contributing 100 soldiers each to the militia, he said. The seven parties are the ones recognized by allied forces as the major political groups opposed to Saddam Hussein's government around the time of the American-led invasion, he added. Besides Mr. Mustafa's party, they are the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Iraqi National Accord, the Iraqi National Congress, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Dawa Party and the Iraqi Communist Party.
Mr. Mustafa and officials of other parties said plans for the militia, details of which were first reported in The Washington Post on Wednesday, were still subject to change.
Dan Senor, an allied spokesman, declined to comment, saying that he would not talk about conversations between American officials and the Governing Council.
Iraqi political leaders from all factions have long argued that American soldiers were ill-equipped to gather intelligence on resistance fighters. The foreign administrators, though, were reluctant to form a large militia, the Iraqis said, mainly because of their distrust of the Iranian-trained Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. But the deteriorating security situation seems to have swung the opinion of the occupiers, Iraqi officials said.
The make-up of the militia has raised concerns among some Governing Council members. Ghazi Yawar, a council member who does not represent any political parties, said forming a militia of soldiers from different parties could lead to violent factionalism.
He added that the Governing Council was not consulted about this and that only council members representing the largest parties - ones that would contribute soldiers - took part in talks on the militia with Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior American commander in the Middle East.
"I am very outraged," he said. "How many people are running Iraq? I'm very upset. This can lead to warlords and civil war. Should I form my own militia? I can have 20,000 people or more here. But that is not what I want to do."
His understanding of the militia differed somewhat from Mr. Mustafa's. Mr. Yawar said only the five largest parties - rather than the seven largest - would contribute to the militia, with 160 to 200 people picked by each party. He said some of them had proposed replacing the council's Gurkha guards - elite Nepalese soldiers who serve with the British armed forces - with militiamen.
"I object," he said. "I want someone in a uniform."
Mr. Mustafa said the militia's soldiers would leave their party affiliations behind once they joined the new outfit. They would operate under the auspices of the Ministry of the Interior, he said, and be concentrated in the Baghdad area.
He added that the militia would serve as an interim force while the occupation authority trains the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, paramilitary troops that will be melded into a national army. What will happen to the militia after that is unclear, he said. . . .
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/international/middleeast/04IRAQ.html> *****
***** Bremer: No room for Iraq militia Saturday 06 December 2003, 15:08 Makka Time, 12:08 GMT
There is no place in the new Iraq for militia forces, US occupation administrator Paul Bremer has said, knocking down reported plans to set up a force of militia fighters.
"I have consistently said since I arrived here that there is no place in the new Iraq" for militias, he told the coalition run television channel Al-Iraqiya on Friday night.
"Our definition of a militia is an organisation which is not national," he said, according to the channel's simultaneous Arabic translation.
"The national organisations we have promised to construct are the new Iraqi army and the new Iraqi police force and the civil defence force. These are national organisations.
"We have welcomed the militias' cooperation with the national authorities, but they cannot continue as militias.
"Quite simply the presence of militias does not fit into the campaign of building an independent Iraq with an army and police," Bremer said in an interview for a TV programme.
Different opinion
Interim foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari backed the use of militiamen as Iraq wrestles with armed resistance to the US-led occupation.
Zebari hailed the idea of recruiting former members of militias, including those of his own Kurdistan Democratic Party, for a new counter-insurgency battalion to work with US Special Forces.
"I think this is a wise move," he told CNN. "It has come too late, but it is better late than never," he added, referring to the coalition's rejection of the idea when it was first put forward by former exiled groups in late May.
The minister said that he thought a "political force" of reliable anti-Saddam fighters could help play a vital role in stemming the violence hitting coalition soldiers, Iraqi civilians and economic infrastructure.
AFP
<http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5C8CCCAB-56BB-4FA3-BB37-B8DCE5C4005E.htm> ***** -- Yoshie
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