US chipping away at Iraqi arms

2004-01-06 16:44

Tall Afar - Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are nowhere to be found yet, but United States troops are determined to flush out, grenade by grenade, the enormous arms caches in dangerous hands.

Not a week goes by without the US-led coalition occupying Iraq announcing the discovery of a significant arms cache with the last one unearthed during a video-taped raid on a Baghdad mosque on Thursday.

These are only drops in the bucket in a country steeped in gun culture.

Members of the once 500 000-strong army of Saddam Hussein and his loyalists and militia all remain armed, not counting weapons looted right after Saddam's fall in April.

In the hunt for arms, the US military has offered money and other incentives such as a scheme launched by the 101st Airborne division in the north, where fomer Baath party members are given the opportunity to reintegrate into the new Iraq in return for handing over their weapons.

Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Pease of the division's 187th Infantry regiment based in Tall Afar, west of the northern city of Mosul, hopes to recover 70% of arms held in his area this way.

"If they stop shooting my people it was worth the effort," he said, adding that three soldiers in his unit had been killed and about 100 others injured in attacks by insurgents so far.

Weapons for new army

In a ceremony in Tall Afar on Monday, about 60 former high-ranking Baath officials handed in weapons distributed before the US-led invasion in March.

They were promised favourable treatment in return for their support and the recovery of the weapons to be handed to a new Iraqi army undergoing training.

Since the launch of the 101st Airborne's scheme three weeks ago, enough arms to "equip a battalion", have been collected, said Pease.

Senior Baathists turned over 483 Kalashnikov rifles, 10 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, mortars and ammunition, according to a list published by the division, not counting arms turned in by lower-ranking party members.

But despite their goodwill, the fate of these ex-Baathists is unclear after Paul Bremer, the top US civil administrator in Iraq, issued a decree in May banning senior party members from holding public-sector jobs.

'Baathists are not going to quit Iraq'

Pease admitted that only a future Iraqi government could make a decision on how to ultimately deal with these individuals, but hoped the page could be turned for those who were sincere about rejoining post-Saddam Iraq.

"I think we're going to have to get over it," he said. They're not going out of the country"

US military commanders also admit it would be virtually impossible to fully secure the vast arms depots dotting Iraq.

At Tall Afar, Iraqis are not rushing to hand over explosives, said sergeant Jeremy Corcoran in front of a concrete barricade protecting his battalion's base which was the target of a suicide car bomb attack that injured dozens.

- AFP