US forces capture key Iraqi general as battle against resentment continues

US forces yesterday said they had captured another wanted Iraqi general, as American administrators tried to curb mounting resentment among ordinary Iraqis by restoring vital services to battered Baghdad.

The US military held General Hussam Mohammad Amin, a key figure in negotiations with the UN inspectors who hunted banned Iraqi weapons before the war toppled Saddam Hussein.

Amin, number 49 on a US list of 55 most-wanted members of Saddam's administration, is the 13th known to have been caught. A US military source said he was caught west of Baghdad on Saturday but declined to reveal who captured him.

As disputes dragged on over who runs the capital and the rest of the country after Saddam's overthrow, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in the Gulf to thank allies for their help in the war.

In Baghdad, the retired American general charged with rebuilding Iraq pledged to help forge an honest government.

Stepping up his efforts to win over Iraqis increasingly suspicious of US intentions, Jay Garner said in a broadcast address: “I am here to help you rebuild your country and to turn your government into one which serves you.”

A senior aide said Garner would meet 400 prominent Iraqis in Baghdad todayOK to identify potential national leaders and discuss forming a government.

Barbara Bodine, Garner's coordinator for central Iraq, said pro-American Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress umbrella group, had been invited.

So had the country's main Shi'ite Muslim group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

America is wrestling with the thorny task of restoring war-damaged services across Iraq and improving its relationship with a population suspicious, often resentful, over the continuing US role in the country.

Bodine met two Saddam-era Baghdad deputy mayors yesterday to try to get repair work going, but she snubbed returned exile Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, who says he runs the city.

An aide said they discussed restoring water, sewerage and waste collection services, severely damaged by US bombing.

In his broadcast, Garner tried to reassure Iraqis that they would determine their own political destiny and that he was not planning to stay long.

An American television network reported that initial tests on a barrel of chemicals found by US forces in northern Iraq had detected nerve and blistering agents.

Quoting Pentagon offici als, ABC News said special forces had found 14 unmarked barrels, at least a dozen missiles and 150 gas masks at a site 112 miles northwest of Baghdad.

US army chemical weapons experts had tested one of the 55-gallon barrels found on Friday.

“The preliminary tests showed it to be a mixture of three chemicals, including a nerve agent and blistering agent,” the report said..