Germany boasts no oil giant that could play a substantial role in the first phase of reconstruction, which is likely to focus on Iraq's vast oil fields.

But German companies' chances appear better suited to the subsequent rebuilding of the country's shattered infrastructures.

"We may not play a big role in the first phase of reconstruction. But I'm relatively optimistic for the second phase, when Iraq will have its own government again and which will focus on rebuilding the country's industrial structures," said the president of the German BDI industry federation, Michael Rogowski, in an interview this week published in the Financial Times Deutschland.

Indeed, German companies were likely to be better placed than their French counterparts, who fear they will have to pay the price for Paris' hardline stance against the war in Iraq.

Unlike Germany, whose pacifist position might conceivably be construed to have been a ploy by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to get himself re-elected in last year's general elections, French opposition appears to have angered the US much more because France threatened to use its veto on the UN Security Council to block military intervention.

Futhermore, Schroeder has appeared keen to fix relations with the United States and Britain in recent weeks.

And it might be sheer coincidence, but Economy and Labour Minister Wolfgang Clement is scheduled to travel to the US on May 19-22, accompanied by a delegation of top industrial bosses.

Before the United Nations imposed sanctions against Iraq, Germany was one of Baghdad's leading trading partners.

And Germany's industrial strengths -- its expertise in engineering, plant construction, power technology, water treatment and telecommunications -- would be important for the reconstruction of a war-shattered country such as Iraq.

"The question at the moment is how to modernise Iraq's devastated infrastructures," said Jochen Muenker, the Middle East expert for the DIHK federation of chambers of commerce.

And because German companies had helped build those infrastructures in the past, they had fairly good chances of getting a slice of the cake this time around, Muenker argued.

The head of the German-Arab chamber of commerce in Cairo, Peter Goefrich, agreed.

The Iraqis would need replacement parts for equipment they had already bought from Germany, he said.

"Iraq was an important customer for German companies" in the past and relations were "still good," Goefrich said.

At Baghdad's last trade fair in November, the biggest stand was Germany's, with 101 companies represented, compared with 84 French companies.

As for other countries in the region, German companies might even try to play the government's anti-war card when it came to winning contracts in other Middle East countries, a recent article in the business weekly WirtschaftsWoche suggested.

The Middle East is an important market for German industry, accounting for exports of 19.5 billion euros -- or three percent of total German exports -- last year, notably in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

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