"The breakdown of law and order, the legacy of the (former ruling) Baath party, the complex ethnic, regional and religious loyalties will complicate the task of reconstruction," said Paul Melly, editor of the Gulf States Newsletter, a specialised fortnightly based in England.

"In the short term, he added, it is vital to restore law and order, so that humanitarian organisations can operate and basic services can be provided," as 60 percent of the 25 million population live on food handouts.

Security is also "important to get Iraqi civilians back to their jobs to get the country back on its feet," said Cairo-based independent analyst Glen Carey.

But this task might not be easy as "there are widespread concerns about connections to the Baath regime" within the Iraqi bureaucracy, he said.

Lord Paddy Ashdown, the international community's high representative in Bosnia, stressed in a recent BBC interview the importance of rapidly establishing an effective judicial system in such post-conflict situations.

Experts say the third war fought by Iraq under Saddam Hussein has not added a lot to the damage already inflicted by the previous two, against Iran, from 1980 to 1988, and the Gulf war, in January-February 1991.

Iraq's oilfields, the only guaranteed source of revenue for reconstruction with proven reserves of 112 billion barrels, suffered little damage. The US-led coalition said they can be brought back on stream in less than three month.

Telecommunications and television infrastructure were hit by the US-led coalition. But power plants were spared, and almost all bridges were seized intact, a main asset for the transport of goods and people in a country crossed by two large rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates.

But this offers little consolation, as the total of the two previous bills were estimated at anything between 25 billion and 100 billion dollars.

And more damning is the human damage done by the wars and the UN sanctions imposed more than 12 years ago to a population that slipped from affluence and high education in the 1970s to massive poverty.

"Iraq has one of the highest rates of under-five mortality in the world, with more than one in eight children dying before they reach their fifth birthday," said UNICEF, the UN childrens' fund in a report released March 11.

"Although it has improved in recent years, malnutrition also remains high, affecting one in four Iraqi children under the age of five -- almost 1 million youngsters," it added, pointing out that half of the population were children.

According to Baghdad's official statistics, at least 23 percent of all children no longer attend school and are working to supplement family income.

"Regardless of war, once sanctions have ended, the scars of sanctions will be seen for many years to come; to rebuild the social system will take 15-20 years," said Hans von Sponeck, a German who resigned in 2000 from his post of UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq to protest the UN sanctions.

Faced with this daunting task, the world community agrees on a role for the United Nations, but trans-Atlantic wrangling continues on its size.

The United States, set to become the occupier of Iraq, wants the international organisation in the backseat, confined to humanitarian relief.

While Iraq's oil sales are expected to bring in less than 20 billion dollars a year, this raises the need for a global effort to secure development finance for perhaps a generation and to forgive Baghdad's huge foreign debt.

Iraqi exiles have already asked that the new regime be exonerated from the 100 billion dollars in war reparations owed to Iran, and the 70 billion dollars due to victims of Kuwait's occupation.

In the long run, the Iraqis would have to lay out plans to rehabilitate promising sectors, like agriculture and tourism, and tackle economic reforms.

Saddam started the reforms in the 1990s, seeking private investments to alleviate the impact of the sanctions, creating a stock market and allowing private banks. But the private companies are still embryonic compared to state banks and industry.

SPACE.WIRE