The solidly built Kurd spoke to AFP at the former headquarters of the Iraqi interior ministry's state security department, now controlled by US Marines.

"It's unbearable to see all of these precepts of Saddam hung on the wall. I can't begin to tell you," the 39-year-old said in halting English.

Along with an undisclosed number of his compatriots, Arka received one month's training in Texas and then in Hungary to help US forces liaise with civilians in Iraq.

Picked by the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the US-sponsored umbrella group of opposition parties, the FIF play a largely symbolic but politically significant contribution to the US-led offensive.

Arka, his head shaven and sporting a trimmed goatee on his scarred face, is seconded to the US Marines' Combat Service Support Battalion to better explain the intentions of the American troops to ordinary Iraqis.

"I tell them the war makes problems, be careful, don't go out. The regime will be over soon, I swear, the people will feel 100 percent very good."

This former electronic goods salesman had for a few months been a security officer under INC leader Ahmed Chalabi in northern Iraq before opting for exile.

That was a choice that took him to Syria and Cyprus before he made the trip to Detroit, from where he kept in contact with Chalabi, who has ambitions to play a key role in the future of a post-Saddam Iraq.

Arka returned to Iraq with his unit at the start of the war three weeks ago.

"I kissed the ground on the first day," he said. "I'm from here, I come back to stay."

"People earn a dollar a day, wear threadbare clothes, travel on bicycles or in cars 25 years old," he said from the ostentatious opulence of the state security headquarters.

One episode has already played heavily on Arka's heart: corpses of Iraqi fighters whose identities he has helped check. Among them was a childhood friend Arka is convinced was forced to take up arms.

"But today all that is finished," he said, even ready to give out his family name despite advice to the contrary from his US superiors.

And the Kurd has no doubts about US plans in Iraq: "The United States has no desire to stay."

Arka also had a message for France, Germany and Russia, the three permament members of the UN Security Council which were vehemently opposed to war on Iraq: "Help the Iraqis. Saddam is a bad man."

But his immediate priority was to visit his parents who live 45 minutes outside Baghdad.

The colonel of the unit to which he is attached has promised him an escort next week, security conditions permitting.

SPACE.WIRE