is mobbed by media as he leaves Hotel Palestine in Baghdad, flanked by Iraqi police officers

BAGHDAD, April 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Mohammed Mohsen Zubeidi, the self-proclaimed governor of Baghdad, kicked off his duty Thursday, April 17, with an American-style tour of the city, shaking hands and kissing babies even as U.S. forces denied his appointment.

Zubeidi, an old opponent of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, visited two hospitals, an electric relay station, a gasoline company and a water treatment plant with a flock of reporters in tow, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

At each stop, he pledged to restore order and stability to the five-million capital.

According to AFP, he was warmly welcomed by Iraqis thirsty for a show of authority -- even from a total stranger.

"I don't know who he is, but he is the first Iraqi official to visit us," said Ragheed Taleb, a young doctor in the Alwiya women and children hospital.

The hospital was one of the very few in Baghdad spared looting in the chaos that followed the vanishing of the Iraqi regime and the capture of the capital by American forces on April 9.

"This hospital is very important, we have 20 to 25 deliveries a day, people from the neighborhood stood guard around it with Kalashnikov rifles," said Taleb.

"The most important thing is electricity, we can manage for the rest," the hospital director Mohammed Ali Taweel told Zubeidi.

"We want security," said a nurse supervising the section of newborns.

A women came forward and gave the self-proclaimed governor her two-day old son Sajjad Abbas to kiss.

Zubeidi, 51, took it all in with gubernatorial panache, sniffing at the sayings of Saddam he found still hanging on the walls.

"I want you to throw out the symbols of the dictatorship," said the self-proclaimed governor.

After 15 years in northern Iraq, Zubeidi told reporters he was "elected" Wednesday, April 16, by religious and community leaders as "president of Baghdad's executive committee", a body tasked to restore basic services.

He added that Jawdat al-Obeidi was "elected" as his deputy and the rest of the committee was to be formed.

Only a day earlier, Zubeidi was billing himself as head of the new Baghdad government and Obeidi as mayor.

He said they were holding daily meetings with U.S. military officials at the Marines headquarters in the Palestine Hotel.

However, the U.S. Marine Corps said Thursday that no Iraqi appointments had been made or sanctioned.

Still, several Iraqi police officers and officials from the ministry of transportation came to the meeting held in the morning by Zubeidi and Obeidi in the Palestine Hotel.

The dual traveled in a light double-cab Japanese pick-up truck for the tour, along with several police officers and journalists on the flatbed.

In the gasoline distribution company, Zubeidi, urged the workers to "start from new, to forget who is a member of the Baath party" that ruled the country under Saddam, "and who is not."

"We have to prove to the world, and to the Americans, that we are able to run our country," added Zubeidi, who presents himself as an "independent" opponent of the old regime.

Asked whether he favored U.S. participation in Iraq's oil sector, he said "no, we can produce and export by ourselves."

The country sits on 112 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia.

A U.S. amphibious assault vehicle blocked the entry to Baghdad's main electric relay station, in the eastern district of Jadriya, and Zubeidi met with its director, Faeq Bidani, in a wasteland outside.

"The Americans are protecting the facility," he said.

Bidani explained that the transformer was intact and would be able to operate at "100 percent capacity" once the damage done to the grid was repaired.

"Until then, rationing will continue, but I promise fair rationing for all neighborhoods," Bidani told the self-proclaimed governor.

The water treatment plant was not damaged but an electricity shortage reduced its pumping capacity, its director Riad Radi told Zubeidi.

The facility was also guarded by U.S. troops and there was a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross inside.