The Iraqi Defence Ministry has called on former army officers who served under Saddam Hussein to rejoin the country's security forces.
The offer applies to all officers up to the rank of Major.
Many of the officers in the army of the ousted regime were from the Sunni community, which is regarded as leading the insurgency in Iraq.
However, an Iraqi government spokesman, Laith Kubba, said that ministers had realised that it was not possible to rebuild the armed forces from scratch over a short timescale.
He said the officers' past loyalties to the previous Ba'athist regime were not a cause of concern.
