Jordan Times
Friday, June 18, 2004
Second group of Iraqi officers graduate
AMMAN (JT) — A batch of 843 Iraqi officers including 40 women on Thursday graduated from a military academy in Jordan after concluding a training course which started last March.
Trained to assume command positions in the field,
the graduates bring to 1,600 the number of recruits for the new Iraqi army that
has been trained in Jordan.
The course comprised classes in basic military training, special command and
special staff courses.
The officers also received training in different areas, including security
organisation, the army's role in internal security, democracy, peacekeeping
operations, military law and terrorism, according to Brigadier Ahmad Farhat,
director of the training programme.
The 10-week training course, he said, included riot control techniques, fighting
terrorists and lectures on democracy, human rights and the army's role in
socio-economic development.
The training is part of an agreement between the Kingdom and the US Coalition
Provisional Authority with Jordanian, American and British officers supervising
the training held near Zarqa.
Under the agreement Jordan has also trained around 2,400 Iraqi police officers
out of a total of 32,000 included in the programme.
Thursday's graduation was attended by senior coalition forces and senior
Jordanian army officers, as well as assistant Iraqi chief of staff, Major
General Mohan Hafez Fheid, Agence France-Presse reported.
Units of the graduating officers carried out riot control and shooting exercises
before being handed their diplomas ahead of their return to Iraq, where violence
has spiralled before the planned June 30 transfer of power, AFP said.
Early Thursday, 41 people were killed and 138 wounded, in the latest attack,
reflecting the formidable task that lies ahead for the new army.
The attack carried out by a suicide car bomber occurred outside an army
recruitment base in Baghdad, targeting many of the volunteers who had been
queuing to sign up to join the new Iraqi army, according to AFP.