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| Iraq | |
| Iraqi Soldiers March to Demand Back Pay | |
| 2003-05-13 | |
| This just struck me as funny. Just a month after their defeat at the Americans' hands, 300 Iraqi soldiers marched on the U.S. Army's main Baghdad base on Monday to demand back pay and a future in the new Iraq. So I take it the Iraqi army wasn't on the "pay for performance" plan. I've never heard of surrender pay. "With our souls! With our blood! We sacrifice for you, Iraq!" Looks like they just changed "Saddam" to "Iraq". Good to recycle those classic oldies. the civilian-clad protesters, many noncommissioned officers, chanted as they joined a growing chorus of Iraqi civil servants hoping for a quick return to normalcy — including salaries — under the U.S. occupation. "We don't want American money or anyone else's money," said one air force sergeant, Ali Kadhim Mohammed, 32. "We have the oil wealth of Iraq. That's what we were paid with before, and that's what we want now." He said he was last paid his monthly salary — 115,000 Iraqi dinars, less than $60 — in February. ...and a FINE job the Iraqi Air Force did during the war. Give Ali a coupla buckets of Iraqi Oil Wealth for his brave service. The Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the U.S.-led postwar administration, has been making $20 emergency payments to some civil servants in an effort to restart government operations. The Iraqi military has not yet benefited, although the U.S. Joint Chiefs chairman, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, said over the weekend that ORHA will look at ways to rebuild a "new and reformed" Iraqi armed forces. Not exactly a proud tradition. May have to work on that. Iraqi military personnel, routed in the U.S.-British invasion, shed their uniforms and went home as the war began to wind down in early April. Some have since been reappearing at abandoned military offices on rumors that lists of names were being compiled for payments. They're giving away money? Oh, shit! Where did I toss my uniform? "We expected life to settle down quickly, but something's gone wrong," said an army engineer colonel, Muhi Hussein Jassim, 40. "Every day they're taking names, and then the next day the list is lost and they start over again." The demonstrators assembled outside the Iraqi air force headquarters, severely damaged by U.S. bombing, marched through the heart of east Baghdad and across a Tigris River bridge to rally at a main gate of the Republican Palace complex, where ORHA and Army headquarters are situated. "We need an accounts for all Iraqi military," read one ungrammatical English-language sign they held aloft. "We need to build a new Iraqi military defense," read another. We know that. We're just not sure we want you guys to be a part of it. An infantry lieutenant, Hassan Issa, 23, told a reporter he heeded U.S. air-dropped leaflets, "and the repeated calls from Bush not to resist," and took 35 of his men out of battle in the early days of the war, at Nasiriyah in southern Iraq. Now, he said, his wife has given birth by Caesarean section, for which he had to borrow money. The infant is sick, and he has no cash for medical care. "How are we going to survive?" he asked.
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| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #5 The back bone of any military is a capable, experinced NCO corps. |
| Posted by: w_r_manues@yahoo.com 2003-05-14 08:30:16 |
| #4 It's going to be difficult to build an army from scratch. We might find we can use a lot of those former NCOs and junior officers. The senior officer, anyone above Captain, should indeed be paid off. The conscripts can be ignored. Pay the rest a few dollars, put them to work cleaning up the military bases, and see how they make out. Keep the good ones, transfer the rest to Iran. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-05-13 17:28:04 |
| #3 Yes, Cyber Sarge, that way he can actually surrender for money! |
| Posted by: Tadderly 2003-05-13 13:56:57 |
| #2 Only an Arab would demand payment for doing NOTHING. The Lt's payment was that he got to live, many did not get that chance. Time to start a NEW vocation or join the French Army. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2003-05-13 12:23:07 |
| #1 You ever get the sense most of Baghdad is fairly quiet with a constant, shouting protest-du-jour surrounding the press compound? |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-05-13 11:24:55 |