Mr Naser, a former headmaster, yesterday re-enacted claims of how he was shot at and hit by Colonel Tim Collins. But the villagers want him, not the British troops, to leave. They prefer life under British rule to that under the Baath party, to which Mr Naser belonged.

As the media vehicles gathered outside his government house yesterday to hear his tale of British treachery, the bemused villagers assembled in the dirt street to denounce him in a crescendo of fury. “He met other members of the Baath party and wrote secret reports. Many people went to jail because of the reports he wrote,” said one middle-aged man, who did not want to be named.

One man went to prison for six months for being heard to criticise the Baath party, while another was jailed for unacceptable religious practices, he said.

The accusations of corruption against Mr Naser poured in wherever I wandered in the desolate oil-worker village. Dust smothers everything, from the breeze-block walls that constitute houses to the few brown palms that pass for vegetation.

The only decorations are piles of rubbish fluttering in the never-ending sandstorms, and rotting industrial equipment scattered at street corners, relics of the oilfields that surround them. “He told us that we would not pass the exams without paying him money,” Ahmed Ismael, a university student, said. “The books and pens were given free by the Ministry of Education, but he still took money for them.”

Mr Naser is accused of demanding 250 dinars (15p) a month from every student for “school repairs”, and pocketing the money. The students said that the British soldiers gave a bicycle to the school for the children but Mr Naser locked it away, planning to sell it.

At a hole-in-the-mudbrick-wall shop, Zaffah al-Haideri, the barber, continued the accusations of corruption. “If there was a broken desk, he would collect money to repair 70 desks.”

Mansour al-Hawani, a pensioner leaning on the shop counter, said simply: “All the area hates him because he was part of Saddam’s rule.”

Mr Naser said he charged students only 100 dinars a month and it all went on transport costs to ship teachers into the village.

After three decades of being oppressed by the Baath party, the villagers are visibly gloating at the tables being turned. Last week Mr Naser was sacked as part of the nationwide purge of Baathists.

He shows few signs of wealth, living in a modest house with peeling paint, a chicken run, and a vast collection of furry toys, 18 model motorbikes and huge flattering photographs of himself, but none of his wife.

The villagers say he has just bought a house in the nearby city of Basra, something that would be impossible on a headmaster’s salary, but again that is something he denies.

Whatever the Government concludes in its investigation of his accusation against Colonel Collins, the villagers are clearly glad that the British troops are there. “The British troops are very friendly,” Aqeel said.

I asked the gathered crowds if life was better now, and they all nodded vigorously. “Absolutely, life is better now. Even with no work, life is better,” Mr Ismael said.

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