Hussein Reportedly Purges 1,500 Officers

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has dismissed about 1,500 senior army officers in a new purge of his military as part of his struggle to keep power following Iraq’s Gulf War defeat, knowledgeable Arab sources reported Saturday.

The sources, who have been reliable in the past, said at least 180 senior police officers also have been sacked and replaced with men Hussein considers more loyal to his regime.

There was no official word from Baghdad or immediate independent confirmation of the report. But it came eight days after disclosures that Hussein had replaced his chief of staff and military intelligence chief in his fourth major command change since November and the third since the war.

The sources said that most of the dismissed army and police officers were pensioned off or moved to much lower positions in the security forces.

These reports and others citing unrest in some Iraqi army units have inevitably given rise to speculation that Hussein is increasingly nervous about his military following Iraq’s humiliation in the war and the Kurdish and Shiite Muslim rebellions that followed.

Most analysts believe that the only credible challenge to Hussein is the army.

U.S. and British insistence that U.N. trade sanctions stay in place while Hussein remains in power is widely considered to be a signal to his generals that the only way to end their country’s worsening plight is to oust him.

“The situation appears to be very tricky for Saddam now. It often looks like he’s secure, but too much has gone wrong,” analyst Don Kerr said.

“With the sanctions biting, the economy in ruins, the population’s health seriously at risk, the question now appears to be how long it will be before senior military officers get together and do something,” said Kerr, formerly with London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies and now a consultant.

There have been persistent reports that senior officers who opposed Hussein’s catastrophic Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait have been purged, some executed.

Baghdad’s state-run Alif Baa weekly newspaper reported last week that Hussein had dismissed his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Hussein Rashid, and replaced him with Lt. Gen. Iyad Futiyeh Rawi, commander of the Republican Guard and a staunch Hussein loyalist.

Rashid, a former Republican Guard commander during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, was appointed defense minister in November.