Former Saddam General Ruled Out as U.S. Commander

Mon 3 May 2004

Former general of elite guard is ruled out as the Iraqi commander

FOREIGN STAFF

A FORMER general from Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard has not been given command of an Iraqi force that entered Fallujah after US marines ended a three-week siege, a US military chief said yesterday.

Major-General Jassim Mohammed Saleh was last week reported to have been appointed commander of the 1,100-strong Iraqi force set up to quell the insurgency in Fallujah.

But yesterday, US General Richard Myers said news media were "very, very inaccurate" in their reporting about Maj-Gen Saleh, who was said to have had a major role in organising the "Fallujah Brigade" and lifting the siege.

The denial came as US troops continued to face attacks across Iraq, with 11 soldiers killed yesterday. In the most lethal incident, six US troops died and about 30 were wounded in a mortar barrage at an army base near the city of Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad.

The latest attacks brought the US death toll to 151 since a wave of violence began on 1 April. At least 753 US troops have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

An attack in north-west Baghdad killed two other soldiers and wounded two Iraqi security officers and another American, the military said. And one US soldier was killed and ten wounded when insurgents set off bombs and opened fire on a coalition base near Kirkuk.

Overnight, Shiite militiamen attacked a US convoy with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades near Amarah, 180 miles south of Baghdad. Two soldiers were killed.

The deadly violence came even as US marines continued to pull back from the siege of Fallujah, between Ramadi and Baghdad.

The marines have now completely handed over the southern side of Fallujah to the new Fallujah Brigade, a force made up of former soldiers from Saddam Hussein's army and led by one his former generals. Marines remain on the northern side of the city, but US commanders have said they will hand over their positions to the Iraqi brigade in the coming days.

The marines handed over their positions under a surprise deal announced last Thursday, when Maj-Gen Saleh was named as commander of the force. Speaking from Fallujah yesterday, he dismissed US insistence over the presence of foreign fighters in the city.

"There are no foreign fighters in Fallujah," he said. Maj-Gen Saleh also said he had yet to receive information on the men wanted for the murder and mutilation of four US contractors which sparked the siege.

But speaking from the US yesterday, Gen Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Saleh was not, and was unlikely to be, the commander because US officials were still checking into his background. "He has not been vetted yet and probably won't be the one in command," Gen Myers said.

There was no word whether Maj-Gen Saleh, who effectively commands a force of several hundred armed men between the marine positions and the city, would accept being removed.

"There are people who know his record, know what he's done in the Saddam regime," Gen Myers said. "They're going to have to find an appropriate role - if a role at all - for him."

The secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, agreed that "those who've committed crimes have no business getting involved" in the Iraqi people's security forces.

But "this was a large army. I don't think all of them committed atrocities, but most of the leadership is gone," Mr Annan said. "But those who are clean, I think, can be used."

Elsewhere in Iraq over the weekend, two civilians were killed and an aide to rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was arrested in a raid by troops of US-led occupation forces in Hilla.

Officials of the Polish-led contingent of multinational troops deployed in the area said they had no information on the incident.

Hilla residents said soldiers stormed a meeting of religious students and tribal representatives in the city on Saturday, and opened fire.

Television footage of the site of the raid showed pools of blood and human remains, as well as bullet holes pockmarking interior walls of the building where the meeting was held.

An aide to Sadr - whose followers rose up last month against US troops in Baghdad and allied forces in southern Iraq after the arrest of one of his lieutenants - said the raid was part of a US campaign against the cleric, who has denounced the occupation of Iraq.

US military officials say they will capture or kill Sadr, who has been in Najaf and the nearby city of Kufa since the start of the uprising.

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=501062004