Members of former security agencies ask for jobs

 

By Muhsen Jassem

 

Azzaman, 2004-10-31

 

Iraqis who worked with the security and intelligence agencies of the former regime have appealed to the interim government for jobs.

 

Under the former regime tens of thousands of Iraqis were involved in the five primary agencies that made up the Iraqi security apparatus.

 

Nearly 70,000 people were assigned to the protection of former leader Saddam Hussein and his regime, not including the four military divisions that constituted the elite Republican Guard.

 

Those directly involved in intelligence and security function were estimated at about 30,000.

 

When the regime fell in April 2003, the US civil administration of the country at the time disbanded all these formations.

 

As a result they lost careers and income and suddenly became among the most vulnerable in the society.

 

“The decision to dismantle the security services including the police force was irrational and has caused of anger and resentment,” said Aziz Jassem, an employee of the former Directorate of General Security.

 

He said the decision denied tens of thousands of Iraqis and their families “the means of livelihood.”

 

He said he was never involved in any crime against the Iraqi people as his job was “to crack down on smuggling, currency forgers and embezzlement in government ministries as well as monitoring prices and traders.”

 

Jassem has been without a job since April 2003 and at 42 he needs to look after four children, a wife and his parents.

 

“I ask the interim government to reconsider the decision of sacking us and give us back our jobs because we have families,” he said.

 

Anwar Kareem said he was working as a mechanic in a car repair workshop in the former Mukhabarat or intelligence.

 

“My section had nothing to do with actions usually attributed to the Mukhabarat and still the US-led Coalition laid us off without compensation at a time we have families to look after,” he said.

 

Many of the employees of the former security and intelligence agencies say they are ready to join the country’s fledging security forces and contribute to maintaining law and order.

 

However, anyone associated with the former security organizations would need “a clean bill of health” from a political party represented in the interim government.

 

Hadi Jibouri, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said “the bill” would not be granted because members of the former security organizations had “their hands stained with the blood of the Iraqi people.”

 

The interim government has set up a new security and intelligence apparatus and according to its commander Lt. Gen. Mohammed al-Shahwani former security members were welcome to join once proving they were not personally involved in crimes against the Iraqi people.

 

Despite the interim government’s efforts to accommodate as many of the former army and security personnel as possible, hundreds of thousands are said to be still idle.

 

The US-led administration had also dissolved the armed forces which included more than half a million troops.

 

The result has been an army of unemployed and resentful Iraqis made redundant simply because they were mostly forced to join the security and military organizations of the former regime.

 

Many in Iraq attribute the current state of lawlessness and violence to US decisions that disbanded all the security and military formations that functioned under former leader Saddam Hussein.