LONDON, May 23: Six weeks after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, security in Baghdad is lagging well behind the rest of Iraq, hampering reconstruction and humanitarian work, a senior British diplomat said on Friday.

John Sawers, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s special envoy to Iraq, said the size of the capital — home to five million people — and high number of Saddam loyalists meant restoring law and order was a greater challenge in the city than elsewhere.

“The capital is a long way behind the rest of the country in terms of restoring normal life,” said Sawers, who has visited Baghdad, the northern city of Mosul and the southern cities of Basra and Amara.

Washington recently removed former US general Jay Garner, who was criticized for failing to ensure a speedy return to law and order. US State Department veteran Paul Bremer has now taken over as civil administrator in Iraq.

Mr Sawers said he expected Mr Bremer “will get a good grip” of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.

Last week the United States, responding to a crime wave which has swept Baghdad since its forces toppled Saddam, posted an additional 9,000 troops in the capital. It said its 25,000 troops had started 24-hour patrols.

Many of the US troops in Baghdad are from the US Army’s Third Infantry Division, which spearheaded the assault on Baghdad but is less equipped for urban peacekeeping than British and other US forces in Iraq.

Although the chaos and looting which immediately followed Saddam’s fall has subsided, residents complain their city is in anarchy and the police force is still largely in ruins.

Baghdad residents, used to privileges including 24-hour electricity supply while the provinces struggled with just eight hours a day, also had to adjust to a loss in status they enjoyed under Saddam, adding to administrative problems, Sawers said.

Around 7,000 policemen have come back to work in Baghdad, but British officials say barely 500 of them were competent to go out on patrol. Others were used simply to “breaking down doors” when they went to work under Saddam.

“There is still a good way to go in order for security to reach a level that Bechtel and USAID can come in and repair that infrastructure,” one official said. —Reuters