Mohammed Mohsen Zubeidi, who says he was picked to lead an interim administration by tribal and religious officials with US consent, said the priority was to restore electricity and other basic services.

But he said Iraq's political life was also reawakening, with 65 parties preparing to resume activities banned by the regime of Saddam Hussein before it was toppled eight days ago by US forces.

"We will be a model of democracy," the 51-year-old Zubeidi told a news conference at the Palestine Hotel before leaving on a tour of the battered capital with a flock of reporters and photographers in tow.

The balding, mustachioed Zubeidi, who spent 15 years in northern Iraq and was under a death sentence from Saddam's regime, said he was heading an executive committee tasked with restoring normalcy.

"Then the Iraqi people will be free to choose their government," he said.

He was vague about the interim arrangements but said they could include members of Saddam's Baath party except "the criminals -- and they know who they are -- who will not dare to sit with us".

Zubeidi, a close associate of Iraqi National Congress (INC) leader Ahmad Chalabi who is backed by the Pentagon for a future leadership role, said he has been coordinating with the US forces here and meets with them every day.

But he said he has had no contact so far with Jay Garner, the retired US general named by Washington as civil administrator to overlook the post-war reconstruction of Iraq.

Zubeidi said executive committees were being set up in other cities as well as Baghdad and the priority was to restore health care, water, electricity, gas distribution and other essential services.

Efforts were also under way to revive the Iraqi media, he said. The radio began broadcasting Wednesday and television will start in a few days, carrying public service announcements and other vital information.

A meeting of journalists who used to work on the previously state-owned newspapers was scheduled for Saturday. The three papers will resume publication, but under different names and management, Zubeidi said.

While Zubeidi claimed the title of interim government chief in Baghdad, another Chalabi associate, INC "General" Jaudat Obeidi, said Wednesday he had been selected as mayor of the capital of five million people.

SPACE.WIRE