Buck Walters, the southern regional coordinator of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) for post-war Iraq, has also met with local leaders in the towns of Samawa and Najaf for similar talks, added the spokesman, who declined to be named.

"He's flying to assess the current situation, meet the emerging Iraqi leadership and hear their concerns. He is getting a feel for what's going on, what type of things that are going to be required as the transition occurs."

Walters will be present at a meeting Tuesday in Nasiriyah featuring various opposition leaders, although Iraqi National Congress (INC) leader Ahmad Chalabi, widely tipped to be the next leader of Iraq, has decided not to attend and will be sending a representative instead.

Garner, currently in Kuwait, is expected to head up to Baghdad as soon as he gets the nod from the US military that the situation is now safe for him to operate.

A 30-strong ORHA team has set up base in this southern port town from where aid is being channeled to other parts of the country.

The spokesman said that an ORHA team was in Iraq's second largest city of Basra Monday, "looking at the situation there."

The British, who took control of Basra last week, have asked a tribal leader to form a community-based committee to help run the city.

The British and ORHA have worked to restore electricity to the whole of Umm Qasr and are fine tuning water supplies.

Major Pat Cloney, a British civil military operations officer, said that Umm Qasr's hospital remains short staffed as some medics had still to return to work but others who had been kept away by the fighting in Basra had now returned.

More aid shipments were due to dock in Umm Qasr in coming days, Cloney said but added, "we are still clearing the waterway" of mines.

Only two ships have so far docked in Umm Qasr and Cloney said the arrangements for deliveries were being further hampered as the shipping insurer "Lloyds are still reticent."

SPACE.WIRE