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Cticis warn of plan to sack 30,000 Iraqi police
Not really sure if "Cticis" is a UK acronym or a tpyo.AS MANY as 30,000 members of Iraq's new police force are to lose their jobs in a radical shake-up aimed at weeding out troublemakers and officers considered unsuitable for employment. A $60 million (£33 million) fund has been set aside by the interim government in Iraq to pay off the sacked police officers, with the axe due to fall at the end of this month. They will receive an average pay-off of $2,000 (£1,100). But critics of the plan in Iraq say that it risks repeating the mistakes made when the Iraqi army was disbanded after the end of the war in 2003, when 400,000 disaffected soldiers were turned on to the streets with no source of income. Many joined the insurgency against the coalition forces. Yesterday, one senior Iraqi officer, Major Basim Mahmoud Hameed, warned that the same could happen again if police officers are dismissed from their jobs. "It is about their loyalty. Some of them are loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr. They are wearing police uniforms and when we need them to be on our side they are on the side of Sadr or with the terrorists in Fallujah," he said. "If we get rid of 3,000 or 30,000 there will be people who will go to them. If the terrorists put them on their side there will be 30,000 Iraqis who are well-trained, can use weapons and we will create 30,000 enemies to us." Hmmm. Major Hameed - an aide to Brigadier Andrew Mackay, the Scottish officer given the task of training the new Iraqi police force - believes a better option would be to send the 30,000 unwanted officers on a new training programme Posted by: Seafarious 2004-08-23 |
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