New Iraqi army recruits old Saddam military

The new Iraqi army will start recruiting former senior officers from Saddam Hussein’s military and today also lifted a ban on members of Saddam’s disbanded Baath party from teaching in schools.

The announcement by the US administrator Paul Bremer in Baghdad represented an admission of mistakes in a centrepiece of Washington’s policy in Iraq after Saddam’s fall – the dissolution of the Baath Party and the 350,000 member military, which were key tools of repression by the former regime.