Saddam's army and state bodies disbanded by US

IRAQI military and security organisations that supported Saddam Hussein's regime have been officially dissolved and a new defence force "representative of all Iraqis" will be set up to replace them, the US civil administrator announced yesterday.

The decision to disband the armed forces, the Republican Guard, the defence ministry and the information ministry puts thousands of people out of work, although many of the military's 300,000 employees and soldiers had already scattered during the coalition offensive.

People who were not involved in criminal acts or associated with Saddam's Ba'ath party will receive a month of severance pay, the statement said.

The information ministry became infamous for denying that American troops were in Baghdad during the offensive, even when US tanks could be seen and heard in the city centre. It had tightly controlled Iraq's media and the work of foreign journalists, and was closely tied to Saddam.

The move was the latest in a series of steps designed to eliminate vestiges of Saddam's regime from postwar Iraq. Like the others, it was essentially administrative, because the armed forces were vanquished during the war.

"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-defence capability for a free Iraq," said the statement, released by Lieutenant Paul Bremer, the administration's top official.

"Under civilian control, that corps will be professional, nonpolitical, militarily effective, and representative of all Iraqis," it said.

The statement did not elaborate on when the new defence force would be established. But US officials have previously indicated that the new force would include members of the army, navy and air force who were not compromised by association with the banned Ba'ath Party and who were not involved in criminal acts.

The commander of US ground forces in Iraq, Lieutenant General David McKiernan, yesterday said he knew of no negotiations for the surrender of Saddam's son Uday, after The Wall Street Journal reported that he might turn himself in.

The Journal cited "a third party with knowledge of the discussions", and said Uday wants to know what charges he might face. McKiernan said Uday's surrender would have to be unconditional and that there would be no negotiations.

"There is a lot of intel, there's a lot of reports that we follow up on on locations but there are no negotiations going on. Nor would there be," McKiernan said.

Under the new disbandment orders, the ministry of defence, the Republican Guard and "other specified security institutions which constituted and supported the most repressive activities of Saddam Hussein's regime", have also been broken up.