A DELEGATION has visited Merseyside on one of the most challenging of commercial missions - selling Iraq as a place to do business.
The party were invited as guests of the Foreign Office to develop links between the UK and southern Iraq where British soldiers have provided the bulk of the peace-keeping force since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.
The delegation included senior southern members of the Iraqi transitional government, politicians, lawyers and the editor of a newspaper in Basra.
All wanted to stress that the image of Iraq as a place of almost daily atrocities was based around events in Baghdad.
"People need to understand that Baghdad is hundreds of kilometres away and in the south there is peace, " said 'Abd al-Karim Mahmud Al-Muhammadawi.
One of Iraq's leading freedom fighters, he battled against Saddam's Ba'athist regime from the southern marsh region for 17 years earning him the title of "lord of the marshes".
Now he is a leading figure in the movement to re-establish southern Iraq as a commercial centre which capitalises on the region's wealth of oil reserves and a vast workforce.
"We are ready to do business and we want people to come to Basra, see that it is a safe and stable place with huge resources," he said.
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