Government plans to disband Sunni militias

"We completely, absolutely reject [the militias] becoming a third military organization," Obaidi said at a news conference.

He added that the groups would also not be allowed to have any infrastructure, such as a headquarters building, that would give them longterm legitimacy. "We absolutely reject that," Obaidi said.

The government has pledged to absorb about a quarter of the men into the predominantly Shi'ite-controlled security services and military, and provide vocational training so that the rest can find civilian jobs.

Integration of the forces would also allow Sunnis to regain lost influence in the key defense and interior ministries, the officials said.

"We've kicked Al Qaeda out and we don't want chaos to take their place," said Sheik Hate Ail, a tribal leader who helped form one of the groups in Anbar Province.

He added that the government should not "brazenly exploit the sacrifices of these Iraqi" fighters and "should absorb these people, not reject them and send them away."

The government has been vague about its plans and the interior ministry has agreed to hire about 7,000 men so far on temporary contracts, and plans to hire an additional 3,000. But the ministry has neither specified the length of the contracts nor the positions the men would fill.

The Sunni irregulars have contributed to a 60 percent drop in violence in the last half of the year, along with the infusion of thousands of US troops and a six-month cease-fire by firebrand Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

In a separate development, the State Department's top official on Iraq said senior officials in the Iranian government have decided to rein in the violent Shi'ite militias it supports in Iraq, the Washington Post reported in today's editions.

David Satterfield, Iraq coordinator and senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said Tehran's decision does not necessarily mean the flow of weapons from Iran has stopped, but the decline in their use and in overall attacks "has to be attributed to an Iranian policy decision."