BAGHDAD, May 26: Former Iraqi soldiers have stepped up their protests against the US-led coalition’s decision to demobilize them with at best a single month’s pay.

The latest demonstration on Monday involved around 100 former officers who warned of further protests, forming militias and even carrying out suicide bombings if nothing was done about their plight.

Officers above the rank of lieutenant colonel will not get a penny in severance pay unless they can prove that they have no link with Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, which the coalition has moved decisively to eradicate from public life.

“We demand the speedy establishment of a government, the return of security, the rehabilitation of public institutions and the payment of wages to all soldiers,” former general Saheb al-Mussawi said in an address to the officers in central Baghdad.

“If our demands are not respected, next Monday will mark the date of the break between the Iraqi army and people on one side and the occupiers on the other,” he said in reference to US-led coalition troops.

The protesting band of officers carried banners saying “Better to have the throat slit than revenues confiscated. The Iraqi army demands its rights!”, and “The Iraqi army is the army of the people and the nation!”

“Death, death so Iraq can live!” they chanted.

Former colonel Ahmed Abdullah said: “If our position is not settled, we threaten to take up arms.”

“We are soldiers used to combat and we have volunteers for martyrdom,” warned former lieutenant colonel Ziad Khalaf in reference to suicide bombers.

“We will take back by force what we have lost by force,” Khalaf said.

The civilian occupation administration Bremer announced on Friday that Saddam Hussein’s former army and vast security apparatus, along with the defence and information ministries, had been abolished.

A “non-political” army is to be created in its place.

“Those not enrolled in this new army, what will they do? How will they feed their family?” asked Abdullah.

But Mr Bremer rejected suggestions that the coalition was throwing rank and file servicemen on the scrap heap.

“The 400,000 (army members) were not put out of work by my decree, they were put out of work by something called the freedom of Iraq,” he told a news conference.

“That’s not to say that we don’t recognize that there’s a problem,” he said, stressing that pensions for retired or wounded soldiers would continue to be paid.

Mr Bremer said the coalition planned to offer some demobilized soldiers jobs in a new security branch of the police.—AFP