At the local school in Rumaila, more than 100 employees of Iraq's Southern Oil Co. turned out to get new employee identification cards from KBR, the US firm hired to help rebuild Iraq's ailing oil industry.

Texas-based Kellogg Brown and Root is owned by Halliburton, the US oil giant of which Vice President Dick Cheney was chairman until his election in

Men and women alike queued for hours in the hot desert sun after being previously vetted by UK forces who control the area and who have weeded out Baath party leaders and other loyalists to Saddam Hussein.

"We've had very much to rely on the information of the local community," said Captain Robert Nicholls, the British civil affairs officer who oversaw the screening process.

"Some of them were identified by their own admission and some by information from the locals," he told AFP in a passageway of the school, as the would-be employees were photographed and issued their new cards.

A computer with a digital camera was installed in a dusty passageway of the school, as KBR officials quickly entered their information and printed out the new laminated passes.

As one KBR man in a black T-shirt and arm tattoo tried to hang the card around the neck of an older woman in full conservative black Islamic dress, she recoiled before he touched her.

"Oh that's right," he said, handing her the pass instead. "You want to do that yourself."

The nearby Rumaila field produced 1.2 million barrels of oil per day before the last Gulf War in 1991, according to industry sources, and is the main source of income for this tiny town near Iraq's southern border.

But Iraq's oil industry has been hampered by neglect, two wars in little more than a decade, and crippling UN sanctions slapped on the Baghdad regime after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

"After the last war we were able to get Kuwait's oil back on line very quickly," said Steve Wright, a civilian employee contracted to the US Department of Defense. "In Iraq it's going to take a lot more work."

Many critics of the United States have charged that the war's real aim was to take control of Iraq's vast oil reserves, the second-largest in the world after Saudi Arabia.

The awarding of the contract to KBR gave the critics added ammunition, while the US administration said the firm was one of only a few with the expertise and security clearance to handle the work.

One KBR official said the cards would allow workers to get back to their jobs on Thursday. Two employees told AFP they were expected back at their posts later Wednesday within two or three hours of getting their cards.

"One o'clock!" said Ismail Taher Ghafel, wearing his bright blue Southern Oil boiler suit and pointing at his watch. "One o'clock today, not tomorrow."

He took a drag on his cigarette and smiled. "I can't wait to get back to work," Ghafel said.

None of the KBR or US officials interviewed by AFP was able to say how much the workers would be paid but US Brigadier General Robert Crear, from the Army Corps of Engineers, said it would depend on their salary history and position.

Crear said the money would come from the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, which is headed by retired US general Jay Garner and will lead the country until an interim Iraqi government is put in place.

He said that US special forces had gone into Iraq's southern oil fields before the war began on March 20 to defuse Iraqi explosives which he said had been intended to blow up wells but would not say exactly when.

"We went in early enough," he said.

He added: "We have a responsibility to repair their infrastructure. We plan to hire as many people as we possibly can," said Crear.

Asked if that "we" meant that the workers were now effectively employees of the United States, the general said: "That's correct."

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