At first the two Marine guards would not accept my word about who I was, what I was and how long I had been in the Palestine Hotel. Fair enough: notwithstanding toppled statues of Saddam Hussein, Baghdad remains a dangerous place, with suicide bombers in civilian clothes and remnants of the dictator's security apparatus still active. Better safe than sorry. Not especially surprised, I pulled my US passport from my shirt pocket. "Nope, I need to see the Iraqi press credentials," one of the Marines said. I was dumbfounded: the guards wouldn't accept a valid US passport, but they would accept as identification the press credentials issued by the propaganda arm of a government they had overthrown and a regime the Bush Administration had likened to Hitler's. I was eventually allowed to pass through the checkpoint, not by showing my Information Ministry press credentials, which I had flung in the wastebasket to celebrate my personal liberation from Iraqi minders, but by showing my hotel room key.

STREET SMART: A man accused of looting is brought to a US milltary base as troops try to restore order to Baghdad

In retrospect, the incident was a mild example of wearisome bureaucracy. Still, it's a telling incident, for it indicates that Americans are inexperienced occupiers, if not downright poor ones. The armies of France and Britain, with their long, often sordid and brutal histories as colonial powers, have a more sophisticated understanding of cultures different from their own, especially in the developing world. They possess a finesse that American soldiers and military officers often lack.

As the task of replacing Saddam enters a key stage, and US forces try to bring order on the streets of a liberated capital that is still roiling with violence, anger and frustration, Washington's success is tinged with more troubling instances of American ignorance and insensitivity than mere red tape at a checkpoint. "We splashed that bastard," a western eyewitness quoted one Marine as saying to another after they had shot an Iraqi man dead late last week. The man was gunned down after he walked out of his door onto a balcony to see why three women were crying from the street below. It turned out their car had been shot at by Marines two minutes earlier. The Americans had been targeted by sporadic rifle and rocket-propelled grenade fire in the neighbourhood, but the eyewitness, producer Tim Lambon of London's Channel Four, said the man atop the balcony did not have a gun.

The death of six-year-old Zara Abdel Samia on Friday brought to six the number of Iraqis killed by soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines during a two-hour period last Thursday, all under circumstances that raised more questions than provided answers. So-called "force protection" is dictating US military strategy and tactics in Iraq. The credo is simple: if you think there's the vaguest threat, shoot first. The implications of this ethos among US soldiers are grave not only for the lives of Iraqis themselves, but for American hopes to win over hearts-and minds-as well.

SINS OF THE SON

Known for his brutality, Hussein Jr flirted with pornography and drugs

Saddam Hussein's playboy son Uday was known for his explosive temper and brutality. Now add to this description gun enthusiast and bon vivant. Inside his house in Baghdad's sprawling Republican Palace, US soldiers discovered hundreds of nickel-plated Belgian automatic rifles and gold-plated Kalashnikov rifles wrapped in plastic. The contents of Uday's lair didn't end with guns. While most Iraqis fought for survival during 13 years of UN-imposed trade sanctions, Uday dabbled in drugs and pornography, as the bags of heroin and pictures of prostitutes downloaded from the Internet and strewn across the floor attest. Besides boxes of Cuban cigars, there was "a lot of US liquor, a lot of French-made wines and Lladro porcelain from Spain and crystal", says Major Kent Rideout of the US Marines. A date with Uday apparently didn't end with guns and wine. Near his mansion in the palace compound was a private zoo that included cheetahs and a lion, as well as stables with stallions. Then there were the cavernous car garages, packed with classic and vintage vehicles. The vehicles are gone, soon to reappear either whole or in part on Baghdad's streets.

CAKES AND ALE: The pool and the spa at Uday's former residence; the poster-lined gym (right)

Despite this, the image of Americans in Baghdad is not tainted beyond repair. After all, not a few Iraqis concede that it was only US military strength that could loosen Saddam's grip on power. Still, these incidents, if they accumulate, could undermine that gratitude and deepen Iraqi suspicions about Washington's motives. It didn't escape notice here that there was one ministry that US troops did guard against looters: the Oil Ministry complex in eastern Baghdad.

Pentagon adviser Richard Perle blithely defended the lapses and ignored America's legal obligations under the Geneva Conventions, telling the BBC that "the US Army is not there to be a policeman on the corner ... After the nightmare of Saddam's rule there is going to be looting, there's going to be turbulence". When US Marines finally took steps to curb the looting, they trumpeted their cooperation with Mohammed al-Bandar, who described himself as the former head of Baghdad's traffic police. It turned out al-Bandar was far more than that: he had overseen Baghdad's entire police department, a notoriously corrupt and brutal cog in Saddam's terror machine.

Personnel choices don't appear to be an American forte, either. Washington insists ad nauseam that it doesn't want to rule Iraq, but there's no doubt among Iraqis that it wants its man in power. Leading the Bush Administration's list of candidates is Ahmed Chalabi, the self-anointed Hamid Karzai of Iraq and the Pentagon's odds-on-pick to be Iraq's next president. Not surprisingly, Chalabi is viewed here as a mere puppet of Washington.

If it is to create or retain goodwill in post-Saddam Iraq, US troops must heed an enduring strain of ambivalence among Iraqis. For the many Baghdadis who opposed both Saddam and a foreign invasion to oust him, last week's toppling of Saddam's statue in Firdos Square-by an American armoured personnel carrier, no less-was their 9/11. They felt humiliated and violated by the sight of US armour taking over their streets. "We may have had a bad government, but a bad Iraqi government is better than a good foreign-run one," said businessman Nazar Sadah, echoing the famous words of President Franklin Roosevelt about a member of Nicaragua's Somoza dynasty: "He may be a sonofabitch, but he's our sonofabitch."

UNFINISHED BUSINESS: American soldiers in Baghdad try to calm Iraqis during a rally demanding the return of the rule of law

American troops and policymakers will ignore this fervent Iraqi nationalism at their peril, for it has implications both here and elsewhere. That's apparent in the evidence of the brutality that builds up day after day, as victims and surviving relatives tell their stories openly for the first time and the citadels of his security apparatus are pried open to disgorge their horrible secrets. Late last week, inside the top-secret General Services Directorate in eastern Baghdad, was confirmation of at least one truth Baghdadis had long known: attached to the personal files of suspected subversives were handwritten notes dictated by intelligence agents from spying neighbours.

Yet as the scope and architecture of Saddam's terror apparatus become clear and start to overwhelm proof of its development of weapons of mass destruction, pressure will grow on Washington to deal similarly with other tyrants. If "freedom's taste is unquenchable", as White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer put it after the stirring events last week in Firdos Square, is it any less for the Syrians? Iranians? For self-appointed liberators and sometimes bumbling occupiers, freedom is a slippery slope. The question is whether American soldiers, officials and politicians are prepared for it.

Slowly, American forces in Baghdad are bringing order to chaos. But they are racing against time. Electricity is spotty, water is running out and Baghdadis are desperate to return to work and earn some money to support their families. Unless they ensure security in Iraq, non-governmental organisations and the technical units of the US and British militaries will be unable to work. Unless they can do it quickly, the promises of liberation will sound hollow.

By necessity, American spokesmen say, US soldiers have approached members of Saddam's former ruling Baa'th Party to request help to secure Baghdad. The analogy they invoke is ominous: Berlin 1945. They say allied powers were forced by anarchy in post-war Berlin to rely on members of the Nazi party for aid in restoring order. While that's true, it remains a question whether they also relied on the Gestapo. Now, Americans appear too unfamiliar with the Iraqi political landscape to determine who were just rank-and-file members and who, in effect, were its Gestapo.