Today, having declined the CPA propaganda opportunity, we went along to an army propaganda opportunity. A few kilometres down the road from here, at FOB (forward operating base) Raider, Major Derek Jordan was handing over eight second-hand Peugeot 406s to a group of compliant imams. 'This is a sign of faith from the commanding general that we expect good things from religious leaders', he said as he stood next to the silver cars on a parking lot near the front entrance of the base. But only three imams bothered to turn up in person to collect their vehicles, and they used the occasion to complain that because of their woolly beards American soldiers regularly accused them of being followers of Osama bin Laden.

I ask the major why, given France's opposition to the war and the country's exclusion from tendering for contracts to rebuild Iraq, his superiors had picked French cars to give to the imams.