US: The US plans to use the Iraqi regular army to help rebuild a post-war Iraq and is recruiting and hiring Iraqis living in the US and Europe to make key decisions in the reconstruction process, the Pentagon said.
A senior US defence official provided the most detailed account to date of the activities of the Pentagon's office assigned the task of administering Iraq following the possible removal of President Saddam Hussein.
The reconstruction efforts described by the official are far more ambitious than those under way in Afghanistan.
The official told reporters the United States planned to pay the salaries of millions of Iraqi government workers, including members of the regular army participating in post-war projects. Asked whether these rebuilding efforts would last months, years or even decades, the official said: "I'll probably come back to hate this answer. But I'm talking months.
"Our goal from day one has been to put together as solid a set of plans that we could implement with the goal of going into \ country, implementing those plans, staying as long as necessary to be able to stand up a government of Iraq and get out as fast as we can," he added.
The official said much of the reconstruction effort would be "a very labour-intensive business".
The United States planned to "take a good portion of the Iraqi regular army" to perform tasks such as engineering, road construction, work on bridges and removing rubble and land-mines.
Analysts estimate that the regular Iraqi army numbers more than 300,000. The official said members of Iraq's elite Republican Guard and the Special Republican Guard, aligned closely with Mr Saddam, would not be used in this effort.
Using the regular Iraqi army, which is seen as less loyal to the government, would allow US officials administering the country not to "put a lot of unemployed people on the streets" by swiftly demobilising it, the official said.
"It's re-establishing some of the prestige that the regular army has lost over the year," the official said. He said several Iraqis have already been hired abroad, but that the recruitment and hiring of these people has not gone as quickly as he would have wanted.