A US-led civil administration was due to begin work yesterday after a team of about 20 officials moved into the port of Umm Qasr in southern Iraq to assess humanitarian needs, a spokesman said.
"This deployment is to assess humanitarian aid needs and to set up a dialogue with the local population," said a spokesman for the administration, known as the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), which is currently based in Kuwait. "You can say it is our first step in setting up ORHA's regions inside Iraq."
ORHA's mission is to provide humanitarian assistance, work on reconstructing Iraq and install a civil administration to prepare for the eventual creation of an interim government by Iraqis.
The administration is to be split into a northern, central and southern region and is headed by a retired US general, Gen Jay Garner, who made a preliminary visit to Umm Qasr last week.
The spokesman said that the officials going to Umm Qasr would be setting up the southern region.
Gen Garner's presence in Kuwait has prompted deep Arab suspicion about Washington's motives and widespread calls that the United Nations be given the job instead.
His mission has also stirred debate within President Bush's administration, pitting the State Department against the Pentagon in a tug-of-war over the shaping of Iraq's political future, analysts say.
The ORHA team has said that it wants to quickly hand over to Iraqis, but Arab analysts say that ordinary Iraqis are unlikely to accept rule by foreigners.
The US Deputy Defence Secretary, Mr Paul Wolfowitz, said on Sunday that it would take more than six months for an Iraqi government to be created to run the country once the regime of Saddam Hussein had been defeated.
Gen Garner will be reporting to the US war commander in the Gulf, Gen Tommy Franks.