Baghdadis converged on the Palestine Hotel, where US officers and media are housed, after foreign radio stations broadcast a call for qualified people to come forward.

By Saturday night, a police cruiser carrying three civilian officers was patrolling the streets again for the first time since the regime's collapse to cheers Wednesday.

Captain Mohammed Abdul Karim al-Asaidi said he was fulfilling his duty to Baghdad's safety after city-wide rampages by sometimes armed bands.

"It was time to get back to work," he told AFP. "We're working for the people, not for a government."

The public mood has been precarious since Baghdad fell with only a whimper of resistance, as fear and anger at US troops met the breakdown in security.

Merchant Hassan Farhid summed up sentiments in Baghdad: "If the Americans don't do anything, we will turn against them."

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.

In a further sign of the fragility of the peace, a fierce firefight broke out Saturday afternoon near the Palestine Hotel.

Marines stationed nearby exchanged machinegun fire with Iraqi fighters for around 10 minutes, taking cover behind their armored vehicles as cameramen and photographers rushed to film the firefight.

Other Iraqis had converged on the hotel earlier asking to use journalists' satellite phones to call relatives abroad after the collapse of communications facilities.

Telephone exchanges were among the targets of coalition warplanes and missiles which began blasting away at the capital's infrastructure on March

US forces, however, managed to secure the city's main water supply station, which had been threatened by looters, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said in Geneva.

The spokeswoman, Antonella Notari, also said the capital's Medical City hospital complex was partly under the control of US forces.

"These are very concrete, very useful measures, but the entire infrastructure serving the civilian population also has to be secured," she told AFP.

Public services, in particular water and electricity, have been out for many days.

Shops remained shut in downtown Baghdad, notably on normally bustling Saadun Avenue. The price of gasoline shot from five cents to one US dollar a liter before gas stations also stopped serving motorists.

Some pharmacies were open on Rashid Street, but most premises kept their shutters down. Armed shopowners stood guard outside.

"It's as if we were in a big ship in stormy seas. We'll be sinking soon," said shopowner Salah Jamir.

Looters tried to sack the cultural center of Baghdad's tiny Jewish community, but were chased away by Iraqi Muslims who came to the minority's aid.

The US military tried to play down the disorder, insisting many Baghdad shops were opening again "because of the presence of coalition troops".

"(Looting) is not nearly as widespread as the focus seems to be when the cameras have been at those locations," Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said at the US Central Command base in Qatar.

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.

For the moment, US troops are stationed in key buildings but there are very few of them on the streets of the capital.

At the General Security Directorate, a massive complex once dreaded for housing the secret police, throngs of Iraqis searched through the rubble left after the US-British bombing campaign, trying to find clues about loved ones who disappeared during Saddam Hussein's 24-year rule.

"Once, it was even impossible to glance at the General Security Directorate while passing in a car. I can't believe we are inside," said Mohamad Rida, an Iraqi Kurd who put his ear to the ground in room after room in hopes of finding out something about his three brothers who were snatched by the regime.

Meanwhile, new finds by US troops offered bizarre and chilling glimpses into the regime.

Soldiers found a large cache of thousands of light arms in a central Baghdad residence, including gold-plated rifles inscribed as gifts from Saddam.

"It is definitely a major discovery," said a US officer, who asked not to be identified, in the posh Al-Harithiya neighborhood.

SPACE.WIRE