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Emergency payments iraq workers { May 4 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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US makes emergency payments to Iraq workers
By James Drummond in Baghdad
Published: May 4 2003 21:09 | Last Updated: May 4 2003 21:09
The US stepped up efforts on Sunday to return Iraq to work, offering public sector workers across-the-board "emergency" payments of $20 for a month's work and taking steps to bring order to the oil sector.
More than 400,000 people have received the payments, according to US officials. Some schools reopened on Saturday and police from non-political services have been invited to return to work.
Attendance by pupils was patchy after three weeks of fighting and widespread looting. Officials with the US-led Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) have warned Iraqis not to expect policemen on the beat for days.
The US dollar will be the main instrument of the interim administration. But officials said on Sunday that two separate Iraqi currencies would continue to circulate - the old Iraqi dinar and the so-called Swiss dinar in Kurdish-controlled areas of the north. Wage and price reform, and overhaul of the country's civil service, are also being reduced in priority.
ORHA has appointed Thamir Ghadhban, formerly head of the oil ministry's directorate of studies and planning, as interim head of the Iraqi oil sector.
Shortly after his appointment was announced on Saturday, Mr Ghadhban said: "We are committed 100 per cent that Iraqi oil is for the Iraqi people." He added he did not believe "what is being said" about the US and Britain being intent on dominating Iraqi oil assets. "We will do our best to improve the current situation."
Iraqi oil output, the country's primary source of foreign currency and formerly capable of producing more than 2m barrels a day, remains stuck at a fraction of its former output.
Mr Ghadhban will be joined by Phillip Carroll, the former head of Royal Dutch/Shell in the US, who is expected to head an advisory board to the oil ministry and to arrive in Iraq this month.
But success in persuading some officials to return was tempered by the announcement of the resignation of Zuhair al-Nuaimi, the interim head of the Baghdad police and a former army general and interior ministry official under Mr Hussein. Few details emerged why Mr Nuaimi was leaving his post but US officials said the vetting process of former Ba'athist officials was continuing.
Grim discoveries from Saddam Hussein's regime rule, meanwhile, continued. Iraqis on Sunday found a mass grave near the central city of Najaf, containing nearly 50 suspected victims of the savage repression of the 1991 Shia uprising. Another similiar site was discovered outside nearby Babylon on Saturday.
As the search continues for Iraq's presumed weapons of mass destruction, Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, said on Sunday he remained confident allied forces would find evidence of Iraqi weapons programmes and that he was not surprised none had been uncovered so far. Mr Rumsfeld added that he assumed Mr Hussein was still alive, but expressed confidence he would be captured.
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