Prime minister wants to reinstate the intelligence services
Stressing that the country's security issues were paramount on his agenda, Iraq's newly appointed prime minister says he plans to resurrect domestic intelligence services and five divisions of Saddam Hussein's army.
Iyad Alawi, a one-time member of Iraq's Ba'ath Party and former CIA-backed Iraqi opponent of Hussein's regime, said the interim government had already begun reconstituting an intelligence service and anti-terrorism unit.
'We need to reconstitute or build an internal security apparatus similar to [Britain's] MI5 or the FBI, which has power of interrogation and detention,' Dr Alawi said at a riverside party honouring Iraqi women last Thursday.
Dr Alawi said he planned to reform five divisions of the old Iraqi army, welcoming tribesman and former members of militia groups into the ranks.
He said Iraq could reintegrate between 40 to 55 per cent of the old Iraqi Army, which was dissolved by US administrator Paul Bremer in one of his first acts last year.
