The gaggle of Iraqi men who are directors and sub-directors of Basra's main power station eyed the US intelligence officer cautiously, writes Jack Fairweather, in Basra
The meeting to decide the fate of the station had barely begun when the officer announced magnanimously: "Gentlemen, I am here to get this power station up and running. I've got engineers and contractors just itching to get started. Is there anything you would like to add?"
"Actually," said the station's planning manager, Mr Adel Hussein al-Shati, a stout man who had once studied at Portsmouth Polytechnic, "we'd like to do it ourselves."
He then explained exactly how long it would take, and the number of men he would need to do it.
"Well, that's a relief," said the officer. "Here was me thinking you were going to talk about generators and cooling lubricants all morning. Get to work."
"Of course," said Mr al-Shati. "This is our job and this is our country."
As Basra entered its fifth day of "liberation", there was the sense that it was time to get the city functioning again.
After days of looting, a calm had descended over Basra yesterday. Although looters still roamed the streets, they seemed to have come to the conclusion that there was either little else left to plunder or that finding water was now their priority.
A gang of young men who had broken into one of the fun parks previously reserved for army officers briefly tried to dismantle a see-saw before giving up to play on it instead. "Water, water," they shouted distractedly.
"This is," said one British officer on a tour of the city, "what I would call benign."
He added: "We intend to start sending out patrols on foot to let people know there is now law in the city."
At the power station Mr al-Shati and Major John Swift, from the 1st Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, had begun distributing water from one of the plant's desalination plants.
"If you really want water, I want to see you get in line," shouted a British soldier at the gates to the milling throng of people.
They duly obeyed.
"I like queues," said Mr Basim Mohammed at the front of the line, "They mean civilisation is coming back again."