Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

    BAGHDAD, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Sunday reached out to former members of Saddam's army, inviting them to join national reconciliation efforts to rebuild the war-torn country.

    "This conference is a major step in the national reconciliation project," Maliki said at a national reconciliation meeting in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

    "National reconciliation is a strategic choice to build Iraq," Maliki said.

    More than 30 high ranking commanders out of some 500 officers of the former Saddam Hussein army attended the conference in a gesture meant to calm the country's sectarian hatred.

    However, Maliki warned that his security forces would fight whoever rejects the reconciliation efforts and bring sabotage to the country.

    "Whoever want to oppose the government should do that through the law and constitution, not by using force," Maliki said.

    "We want the opposition to be on democratic bases and through dialogue, not by blood baths," he added.

    Maliki has been under increasing U.S. pressure to improve security situation and ease tensions as the country is descending into a civil war.

    After Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president, was ousted by U.S.-led forces in 2003, the interim administrator L. Paul Bremer III disbanded the army in a purge of supporters of the once Sunni-dominated regime.

    But the move has been criticized as one of the most critical missteps in the post-war period, for sending disgruntled and jobless members of Saddam's Baath Party into the ranks of the insurgents.