Iraq to get new army

The United States announced new plans to pacify angry former Iraqi soldiers and create a new Iraqi army yesterday as two visiting US senators said American soldiers could stay for more than five years.

American efforts to restore order in Iraq took another blow when an oil export pipeline, not in use since the US-led war began on March 20, exploded near the Syrian border, in the third Iraqi pipeline blast this month.

Two visiting US senators said American troops may need to stay in Iraq for at least five years.

Richard Lugar, a Republican, urged President George W. Bush to do some "real truth-telling" to explain to his people how much commitment and money would be needed to rebuild the country from the ruins of war and 35 years of Baathist rule.

"I think we're going to be here in a big way with forces and economic input for a minimum of three to five years," his Democrat colleague Joseph Biden told reporters. Many Iraqis were glad to see the back of Saddam Hussein, but are impatient to get rid of their US-British occupiers.

One grudge is the failure to install an interim Iraqi government and get public servants back to paid work. The US-led administration disbanded the old army last month along with security agencies and the information and defence ministries, making about 400,000 people jobless.

"This country was grotesquely over-militarised," Walter Slocomb, an aide to chief administrator Paul Bremer, told a news conference. "It is the fact that most people who were in the old army will not be able to continue military careers."