The Iraqi National Congress of Ahmed Chalabi said its newly formed armed wing, the Free Iraqi Forces, yesterday captured Mohammad Hamza Al-Zubaidi, one of the 55 Iraqi officials wanted by the United States, and turned him over to American troops.

Mohammad Hamza was captured at Hilla, 80 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad. He was a member of the Revolutionary Command Council, the all-important decision-making body of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

As Garner became acquainted with the Iraqi capital, thousands of Shiites marched in the heart of the city in angry protest over the reported arrest of a leading religious leader by the US military.

The demonstrators massed outside the Palestine Hotel to demand the release of Sheikh Mohammed Al-Fartusi along with other Shiite leaders. Al-Fartusi was said to have been seized by American troops in Baghdad’s Al-Thawra district.

Garner landed at the former Saddam International Airport after a short flight from Kuwait. From the airport, the 65-year-old former general went to visit Baghdad’s 1,000-bed Yarmuk Hospital, which was overwhelmed with Iraqi casualties in the final days of the war. “We will help you, but it is going to take time,” Garner told doctors.

Some were unimpressed. “If they give us anything, it is not from their own pockets. It is from our oil,” said a female doctor, Iman.

Garner pledged to try to get electricity and water re-established “as soon as we can” but said he could not hold to a three-month deadline to hand over power to a future elected government of the Iraqi people.

He dismissed the claims of Mohammed Mohsen Al-Zubaidi and Jawdat Al-Obeidi who styled themselves as the new governor and mayor respectively of the Iraqi capital.

“There are a lot of de facto leaders. I don’t know who they are but our goal is to start a process whereby the Iraqi people elect their own leaders,” he said. “We haven’t appointed anyone or recognized anyone.”

At a Pentagon news briefing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the United States has not considered seeking permanent military bases in postwar Iraq and that he viewed the likelihood of such an arrangement to be low. But Rumsfeld did not directly respond to a question of whether he would rule out such a future arrangement.

“I have never, that I can recall, heard the subject of a permanent base in Iraq discussed in any meeting,” Rumsfeld said.

Meanwhile, the United States said it feared the defeat of Saddam Hussein’s regime had increased the potential for terrorist attacks on US interests overseas and urged Americans around the world to redouble their security precautions.