"We are trying to get the Baghdad police to come back to work and do their jobs and try to maintain civic order," Colonel Peter Zarcone told the Newsnight programme.

"We've been trying to contact police officials. We've put out word over the airwaves to come and see us. We've talked to approximately three individuals today," added Zarcone, who was speaking from Baghdad.

Iraqi police officers, out in force in the capital until Baghdad fell, vanished with the appearance of the US troops and nearly all the city's police stations have been ransacked.

Asked how concerned he was that Bagdad's police were inevitably tainted by being part of Saddam Hussein's regime, Zarcone replied:

"That's a concern of course but what we're reassured by is most of the people we've spoken to who've been living here have said that the local police are not closely allied with the former regime and the atrocities committed by them."

Baghdad slipped deeper into anarchy Friday as looters attacked government buildings, hotels and even hospitals, stealing medicines, stethoscopes, air conditioning units, and incubators.

Doctors struggling to work in one of only three hospitals still open in the capital were forced to carry rifles, and they were treating looters shot by shopkeepers who had taken law enforcement into their own hands.

The United States is to send nearly 1,200 police consultants, advisors and judicial experts to Iraq in the coming weeks to help establish security in the aftermath of the war, the State Department said Friday.

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