Former army officers reject Maliki’s offer, put conditions

Iraqi embassy in Yemen released an adver­tise­ment on Yemeni news­pa­pers ask­ing for­mer Iraqi army mem­bers to return to ser­vice, giv­ing them a time line from 14/2/2009 to 14/3/2009.

The ini­tia­tive is already rejected by the Ba’ath Party putting a con­di­tion of recog­ni­tion of the Iraqi resis­tance as the only rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Iraqi people.

Al-Jazeera reported that for­mer Iraqi offi­cers are very skep­tic about this offer, express­ing lack of con­fi­dence in this ini­tia­tive, remem­ber­ing the killings, arrests and tor­ture suf­fered by tens of thou­sands of officers.

One offi­cer said:

We believe that this is for media con­sump­tion, offi­cers exposed to liq­ui­da­tions, dis­place­ment and depor­ta­tion, the occu­pa­tion still exists, and the forces that came with it are still funtioning.

Al-Arab news­pa­per reported about con­di­tions put by the for­mer Iraqi offi­cers to accept Maliki’s offer:

To get rid of the sec­tar­ian cler­ics who are influ­enced by Iran, fire all offi­cers who are given mil­i­tary ranks by the Amer­i­can occu­pa­tion army, release all detainees who were arrested with­out charge or evi­dence, free­ing of the Iraqi army from depen­dence on the Pen­ta­gon, dis­solve the Kur­dish Pesh­merga mili­tia, Sadr and the Badr Brigades, by force or com­pen­sa­tion and seize their weapons and arms.