THE commander in charge of six Red Caps killed by an Iraqi mob has denied claims that the men were sent into a volatile "powder keg".

Colonel Thomas Beckett was giving evidence yesterday on the first day of an inquest in Oxford into the deaths of six Royal Military Policemen (RMP) - including three from the North-East.

Corporal Simon Miller, 21, from Washington, Wearside, Lance Corporal Ben Hyde, 23, from Northallerton, North Yorkshire, and Corporal Paul Long, 24, from South Shields, South Tyneside, were among the servicemen who died in the Al Majar Al Kabir police station on June 24, 2003.

The other men killed were Sergeant Simon Hamilton-Jewell, 41, from Surrey, Corporal Russell Aston, 30, from Derbyshire, and Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, 20, from Wales.

Their families hope the inquest will reveal the truth about what happened in Iraq in the moments leading up to their deaths, which represented the Army's worst losses since the first Gulf War in 1991

Col Beckett, the first witness to appear, was asked if the six men had not been set an "impossible and impracticable task" when they moved in to the police station.

Col Beckett said there was no history of attacks against troops in Maysan province - an area about the size of Northern Ireland.

He said: "The intent (of the locals) was to work with the coalition - that was my belief. It was a genuinely-held belief by the majority of people that this was the most benign province in Iraq."

When challenged by the family's solicitor, John Mackenzie, Col Beckett said that was why there were 1,060 troops from the 1 UK Battle Group in the prov-ince, compared with about 20,000 in Northern Ireland.

"You were sitting on a powder keg," said Mr Mackenzie.

Col Beckett said: "No, my estimate of the problems - and this was supported by the local leaders and, I believe, at divisional level - was benign, but fragile."

Col Beckett said the Iraqi police were either Ba'athists from Saddam's regime or volunteers with no training.

He said that after the end of hostilities against Saddam, infantry was not needed as much as engineers to help rebuild the country and Military Police to train the Iraqis.

But only 20 to 25 soldiers were allocated to train the entire provincial police force.

"You must have viewed that task with despair," said Mr Mackenzie.

"At one stage I was told I was going to get two teams of RMPs, but it was reduced to one," said Col Beckett.

"I would have preferred two. I would have preferred more."

Reg Keys, whose son, Thomas, 20, was one of those who died, said the Army's "cavalier attitude" would become apparent in the inquest.

Mr Keys, who stood against Tony Blair in Sedgefiled, County Durham, during the last General Election, said he was confident that Coroner Nicholas Gardiner would call for a public inquiry into the deaths once he had concluded the inquest, which he said would reveal "some surprises".

Shortly after the inquest opened, Mr Keys told reporters that the Army had shown a "lack of duty" to care for his son and colleagues and said they had been sent into a "death trap".

He said: "This is the opportunity to know what happened to those six lads and put that information into the public domain."

Mr Gardiner adjourned the inquest until today, when pathological and ballistics evidence will be heard