<p>BAGHDAD — Iraq's new U.S. overseer took a major step yesterday toward disarming Iraq, formally dissolving Saddam Hussein's Defense Ministry and disbanding the Republican Guard and the once-mighty Iraqi army.</p>
<p>Coalition authorities are also readying a directive that will attempt to control the flood of weapons that swamped Baghdad and other urban areas in the months before the war. That order will ban the possession of heavy firearms and munitions, except by coalition forces and the Kurdish "peshmerga" militia fighters, U.S. allies in the drive to oust Saddam.</p>