The political jockeying for position in Iraq gathered steam as the United States prepared to bring in tens of thousands of new troops to stabilize the country after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

On Wednesday, two close associates of an Iraqi opposition leader said they had been elected governor and mayor of Baghdad by tribal and religious chiefs acting with the consent of occupying US troops.

But Captain Joe Plenzler, a spokesman for the US marines here, shot down the claim. "Anyone declaring themselves as mayor or anything else is just not true. The US government has not appointed anyone."

"Anyone can call themselves anything they want to," Plenzler told AFP. "But future appointments like this will be handled through USAID (the US Agency for International Development)."

Mohammed Mohsen Zubeidi, a veteran anti-Saddam politician, earlier looked official enough with a huge media entourage to boot as he proclaimed himself head of a new interim administration for Baghdad.

Zubeidi said Iraq's political life was reawakening, with 65 parties preparing to resume activities banned by the Saddam regime before the fall of Baghdad on April 9.

"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," said Zubeidi, a close associate of Iraqi National Congress (INC) leader Ahmad Chalabi who is backed by the Pentagon for a future leadership role.

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 said he and INC "General" Jaudat Obeidi, named interim mayor of the capital of five million people, had been coordinating with the US forces here and meeting 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.

Chalabi arrived in Baghdad late Wednesday and was staying in a house that once belonged to one of Saddam's sons in an affluent district of Baghdad. He was not immediately available for interviews.

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.

Power has been out here since April 4. But a US military spokesman said the marines hoped to restore electricity supplies to more than 50 percent of the population of the capital by Friday.

Efforts were also underway to revive the Iraqi media, Zubeidi 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 the US marines struggled to get the reconstruction process off the ground, a 30,000-strong task force spearheaded by the US Army's Fourth Infantry Division (4ID) was marshaling in the Kuwait desert.

The force is expected to provide the backbone of efforts to restore order to Iraq after a bout of widespread looting and vandalism that followed the fall of Saddam.

US officers emphasised with the troops that the military successes of their comrades could be undone if the follow-up stabilisation force failed to win the confidence of the Iraqi people.

SPACE.WIRE