"It's the same people all over again," protested Ahmad Kadhem, 23, outside a makeshift recruitment center where he and dozens of other Baghdad residents came Sunday to sign up as volunteers for a police force that would end the chaos reigning since US forces took over the Iraqi capital.

They were horrified to be turned back by a police officer who told them only people who already served in the force or in other interior ministry departments were eligible.

"I came here to volunteer to protect state buildings, but I found the same (Baath) party members who tortured us only a few days ago," Kadhem said, lifting his T-shirt to show scars of torture on his back.

"I spent three months (in a detention center) because I was accused of insulting Uday," the elder son of the deposed Iraqi leader, he said.

Scores of other Iraqis looking for a job left the center empty-handed after it became clear that only policemen and employees of services ministries, such as electricity and health, were being enrolled.

Confusion reigned in the hall where functionaries were compiling lists of civil servants wishing to resume work in priority public services.

"They don't want jurists -- only Saddam's men," said Salim al-Murshidi, a lawyer in his 50s who had also come to offer his services to the reemerging police force.

Firas Shbeib, who served two years of a 25-year prison sentence for criticizing the regime before benefitting from an amnesty, said he too had been turned down.

"Honest people don't interest them," said Shbeib.

"We do not want to see the people who used to protect the regime and commit the worst abuses resuming work," said Taleb al-Saadi, another unlucky candidate.

"Had the police force been innocent, it would not have disappeared" after US forces took over Baghdad Wednesday, said Diya Abdul Amir.

"Volunteers who are trustworthy should be in charge of restoring order pending the formation of a new, honest government, because the former policemen were bullies," he said.

Jassem Mohammad, a 34-year-old engineer, was refused a job at the electricity ministry.

"I was told they only take former employees, who are all Baath people," he fumed.

"In order to land a public sector job, you had to be a Baath member, which is why I have been without work for years," Mohammad explained.

He said he had no respect for Baghdad's police officers.

"I tell you: I saw many of them dressed in civilian clothes taking part in the looting," he charged.

Even Hussein Abbas, a member of the police force, was complaining.

"I personally don't want police officers to resume work because the people won't like it," he confided.

Police Colonel Abdul Ghafur Mahmud defended the decision to recruit people who were already members of the force.

"We cannot take new candidates because they have neither training nor experience," said Mahmud after a meeting with American officers at the Palestine Hotel, a few meters (yards) from the recruitment center.

Mahmud conceded he himself was a Baath member.

SPACE.WIRE