They signalled that they would slit their throats and screamed abuse at Iraqi policemen they recognised being escorted by British officers into the bombed-out ruins of their former headquarters.

Inside, many of the 200 or so Iraqi policemen who had answered an appeal to return to work were having second thoughts about joint street patrols. A dozen volunteers immediately changed out of their olive-green uniforms and tried to escape in the confusion. Most of the others were plainly too scared even to attempt to leave the compound, which is ringed by British Challenger tanks.

Some protesters, such as Ali al-Mindar, 22, lifted his shirt to show half a dozen scars running the length of his back, which he claimed were the result of being tortured inside the police headquarters. He was so incensed that he began to tear at the barbed wire encircling the building with his bare hands.

Harassed British liaison officers shuttled between the volunteers cowering inside the police station and the ringleaders of the protest, desperate to salvage the joint patrols.

Yesterday was meant to be a sign that normality was returning to Basra and a demonstration of how Iraqis could look after themselves. Instead, it showed the depth of local hatred felt towards President Saddam Hussein’s security apparatus.

The hostility served as a warning for coalition forces trying to rush into similar experiments in Baghdad and other cities: many Iraqis are not yet ready for such symbolic gestures of reconciliation.

Naif Kanifa, an accountant, accused British commanders of being naive and insensitive. “Don’t they know what this police force was like under Saddam?” he shouted. “We were promised the old regime was gone for good, but if these killers are being allowed back, then will Saddam come back, too? If these officers come out, then we will kill them.”

A British major who had helped to broker the deal refused to concede defeat and arranged to have a couple of dozen of the braver volunteers smuggled out in covered army vehicles to take part in light traffic duties.

“It will take time for people to get used to this idea, but whatever excesses this police force made in the past, we can promise it won’t happen now,” he said. “We want Basra to have confidence in its police, so we will train a new generation of officers and then retire some of these.”

British officers asked a group of local dignitaries to run their eyes over the first volunteers to eliminate anybody with blood on their hands.

During Saddam’s reign, Basra had 5,000 police. Yesterday fewer than 50 made it on to the streets. The British wisely chose lunchtime for the experiment, as most people were off the streets sheltering from the heat.

One Iraqi warrant officer, who did a brief stint controlling the traffic yesterday, insisted that not all his force was tainted by the sins of the former regime. “I have been an honest officer for 19 years, and I want to help my city,” he said as he pulled over the driver of a Toyota pick-up truck that he suspected had been stolen.

The driver instinctively reached inside his trouser pocket and started to produce a wad of cash, which, in former times, was the way to iron out misunderstandings over registration documents. An Irish Guards officer spotted the movement, narrowed his eyes — and the Iraqi policeman told the driver that he was under arrest.

Lieutenant John Plummer, 26, who was given three Iraqi officers to help him to man a checkpoint in the city centre yesterday, said: “They have an uncanny eye for spotting stolen cars.” Yet three minutes after going on duty, one of the Iraqi officers nipped off for a cigarette. A second police volunteer wandered over to join him, while the third was not even watching the approaching traffic that he beckoned through the security cordon with a lazy flick of his wrist.

The Iraqi policemen cannot yet carry guns in Basra. Many felt that they had gone to work only half-dressed yesterday without their revolvers on their hips, but there is no indication when they might be armed again.

Nor do they know how much they will be paid. That figure is still to be negotiated, although it is likely to be between two and three US dollars a day, which is, by local standards, a handsome salary. To ensure that the volunteers keep showing up for their shifts, British officers have promised to give them a downpayment on their first month’s salary tomorrow. The money is likely to come from the Department for International Development in London.

The more immediate problem is getting enough local currency to Iraq’s second city to pay local employees, from bus drivers to refuse collectors, who have also returned to work. Most of the local banks have been cleaned out and there is no money coming from Baghdad, so the British are scraping up what they can find. Only a few civil servants have so far joined the return as most of their workplaces are burnt-out shells.

There is nothing left inside the police headquarters, either, but Iraqi officers did not seem to bear a grudge that the British armoured battle groups with whom they were working yesterday were the same men who had reduced their once impressive building to rubble.

“That’s war,” one said with a shrug as he deserted his post and ambled off for another cigarette.

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