The Iraqi government announced Sunday that it had fired about 1,300 police officers and soldiers who had refused to take part in the fighting with the Shiite Muslim militias in Basra.

Apparently, during the operation of disarming militia fighters, some Iraqi police officers decided to switch sides.

"Some of them were sympathetic with these lawbreakers, some refused to battle for political or national or sectarian or religious reasons," Gen. Abdul-Kareem Khalaf, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a U.S. military official in Baghdad considers that most of the soldiers deserted out of fear rather than loyalty to Sadr. He also said most of the deserters were very young recruits who had just finished training.

No matter the reasons the soldiers had, the desertion is clearly a sign of weakness of the Iraqi security forces, which should manage by themselves as the number of U.S. troops decreases. The fighting in Basra was criticized as poorly organized after failing to disarm Shiite militias, especially the Mehdi Army loyal to cleric Moqtada-al-Sadr.

Gen. Khalaf declared that 500 soldiers and 421 policemen were fired in Basra, and the rest were dismissed in Kut. The deserters included 37 senior police officers that ranked as brigadier general.

On Sunday, the Iraqi Cabinet approved for submission to parliament a measure that forbade political parties with militias to participate in future elections, but no specific group was named.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had threatened for some time to take this step against Moqtada al-Sadr unless the radical Shiite cleric did not disband his Mehdi Army militia.

All major political parties in Iraq are believed to be linked to various armed groups, but all of them deny the suppositions.