Threatening nationwide massive demonstrations El-Mosawi gave the occupying authority until Monday to meet the Iraqi army “demands”

By Ali Halani, IOL Iraq Correspondent

BAGHDAD, May 26 (IslamOnline.net) – More than 5,000 Iraqi army officers and personnel staged a demonstration Monday, May 26, protesting the decision by the American civil administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer to dissolve the Iraqi army and all affiliated bodies and gave him until Monday to renege the move.

The protesting military people, carrying banners that dismissed the illegal American decision and the occupation of their country, threatened organized armed resistance if the Americans fail to heed their demands.

Lit. General Saheb el-Mosawi, who spoke on behalf of the demonstrators and the entire Iraqi army, stressed that the decision taken by the occupation authority, which sent more than one million Iraqi citizen jobless, was an unacceptable insult to the honorable Iraqi army.

Asserting that Iraqi military people were dumbfounded by the American decision, the top brass outlined the “demands” of the Iraqi army as an accelerated formation of an Iraqi government that represents all society; payment of military people salaries according to set criteria; and the formation of an Iraqi army, from the old one, that maintains the country’s dignity.

Threatening nationwide massive demonstrations by members of the Iraqi army, their families and ordinary citizens, Lit. Gen. El-Mosawi gave the occupying authority until Monday to meet the Iraqi army “demands”.

He underlined that the Iraqi people would not tolerate any other “humiliations” from the occupation forces.

But Lit. Gen. El-Mosawi declined to respond to a question by IslamOnline.net correspondent what the Iraqi army would do if the U.S. gave their demands the cold shoulder.

Approached by IOL correspondent, several demonstrators agreed on dismissing the American decision as unacceptable, but differed on future steps if their demands were shrugged off by the Americans.

Salim Fatah, an Iraqi infantry officer, asserted that the Iraqi army officers were becoming inpatient with the occupation forces who “crossed all red lines.”

He said they were considering to organize armed resistance against the Anglo-American forces if they declined to meet their demands.

Amar Abdullah, an Iraqi aviation officer, accused the occupation power of seeking to get rid of all powers in Iraq under the pretext of links to ousted president Saddam Hussein and the Baath party.

This is unacceptable because the Iraqi army was not a political body, he said.

Iraqi army officers slammed U.S. decision, sending them jobless

May be some official could be held accountable for certain actions they did but to generalize the issue and dissolve the Iraq is rather a well-planned scheme to bring Iraq to its knees.

The Iraqi officer warned that holding the entire Iraqi army accountable instead is a message that entails grave repercussions.

On Friday, May 23, Bremer announced the dissolution of the Iraqi army forces, other security structures of the ousted regime and the information ministry.

The order also does away with the Ministry of Defense and (outgoing President) Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard corps.

"The coalition provisional authority plans to create, in the near future, a new Iraqi corps. This is the first step in forming a national self-defense capability for a free Iraq," an aide to Bremer said.