[A-List] "Liberated" Iraq

["Mine Doyran" <mine.doyran@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

About the anti-U.S. rallly and looting in Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-War-Rdp.html

U.S. Steps Up Efforts to Prevent Looting Across Iraq

April 12, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 3:29 p.m. ET

Joining forces in a city of shattered order and ransacked
history, U.S. troops and Iraqi police are setting up
patrols to rein in waves of thievery in Baghdad. Marines
rolled north to confront what could be Saddam Hussein's
last holdouts.

A wild firefight outside a Baghdad hotel Saturday and the
threat of suicide bombings kept American soldiers wrapped
in the urgent business of putting down armed resistance in
the capital even as looting spread.

They accepted the surrender of Saddam's Hussein's science
adviser, the first top official of the Saddam era taken
into custody, among 55 being sought. Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi
is likely to know about any Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction, but insisted Iraq has none.

Restraining mobs of looters was a rapidly growing priority.


Robbing history itself, thieves pillaged the Iraq National
Museum, stealing or destroying artifacts going back 7,000
years -- predating even Babylon. The loss resonated through
Baghdad and around the world.

``This is Iraq's civilization,'' said a tearful museum
employee. ``And it's all gone now.'' At Emory University in
Atlanta, historian Gordon Newby said: ``This is just one of
the most tragic things that could happen, for our being
able to understand the past.''

Iraqis who had warmly welcomed Americans in the capital
last week were growing resentful at the persistent
disorder, noting the troops often just stood by as people
stormed government offices, schools, hospitals and homes.

U.S. officials were dispatching the first contingent of
1,200 American police and judicial officers to help troops
put a lid on the lawlessness.

Iraqi police, quickly adapting to the new power order,
worked with U.S. Marines to set up joint patrols that would
start work in a day or two.

``Anyone who carries a weapon or fires a weapon, we will
fire at,'' Iraqi police Col. Mohammed Zaki said. Marine
Staff. Sgt. Jeremy Stafford said of the arrangement: ``It's
going to happen sooner rather than later.''

The looting of the Baghdad bureaucracy raised concerns that
any documents tied to Iraqi chemical, biological or nuclear
weapons programs might disappear along with all the
treasures.

Al-Saadi arranged his surrender with the help of Germany's
ZDF television network, which filmed him leaving his
Baghdad villa with his German wife, Helga, and presenting
himself to an American warrant officer, who escorted him
away.

Everywhere there were reminders that the climactic taking
of Baghdad did not mean the war was over:

--Ninety miles to the north, in Saddam's hometown of
Tikrit, his loyalists were believed laying in wait,
although their will to fight was an open question. A
contingent of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, described
only as significant in size, headed toward that city to
challenge whatever it found.

--To the west, U.S. forces intercepted a busload of 59 men
driving toward the Syrian border. They had $630,000 in cash
and a letter offering rewards for killing American
soldiers.

--In Baghdad, Marines uncovered a cache of about 50
suicide-bomb vests, packed with explosives, in an
elementary school. As evening fell, a gun battle broke out
by the Palestine Hotel along the Tigris River; the crackle
of machine gun fire and explosions were heard as Marines
ran from tree to tree.

Measured steps toward stability were taken, too.

In
Kirkuk, a vital northern oil city taken from Iraqi regime
forces, Kurds, Arabs and ethnic Turks began working on a
cooperative arrangement to govern without the ethnic strife
threatening to flare in the post-Saddam era.

Kurdish fighters who took over the city said they would
yield to the Americans once enough of them arrived to
secure law and order.

Looting diminished Saturday in another northern city,
Mosul, a day after pro-Saddam defense forces dissolved and
U.S. forces moved in. A Mosul hospital reported 10 people
had been killed in Arab-Kurdish violence that broke out as
control of the city changed hands.

With heavy air strikes subsided, the U.S. Navy said it may
soon send two of the three aircraft carrier battle groups
in the Persian Gulf back to their home ports -- the USS
Kitty Hawk to Yokosuka, Japan; and the USS Constellation to
San Diego.

``We're anxious to get those folks back to their home ports
as soon as we can,'' said Vice Adm. Timothy Keating.

U.S. forces reopened two strategic bridges in the heart of
Baghdad, a step that only spurred the looters by giving
them access to territory they had been unable to reach.

People carried away bookshelves, sofas and computers from
government offices.

The two-story mansion of Tariq Aziz, a familiar face to
Westerners as Iraqi deputy prime minister under Saddam, was
also pillaged. Thieves stripped light fixtures, appliances,
wall sockets, chandeliers, furniture and carpets -- leaving
a smattering of books on the floor, including one titled
``The Great Iraqi Revolution.''

In Cairo, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned civil war
could engulf Iraq unless U.S. and British forces did more
to restore law and order.

The U.S. Central Command said many Iraqi fighters who were
believed to have regrouped in Tikrit may have fled in the
face of heavy airstrikes, and the remnants may not muster
an effective defense in or around the city.

``We may find that there's not much fight left, but some of
the recent operations indicate that there's still some
fighting to do even in those areas,'' said Brig. Gen.
Vincent Brooks, deputy director of operations for the
command.

Tikrit has long been a power center for Iraq's Sunni Muslim
tribes, who may plan to resist as long as possible out of
fear of losing power to the Shiite Muslim majority.

Saddam drew many members of his inner circle from Tikrit,
and built several fortified palaces and military
installations there.

U.S. officials said Saturday that the first humanitarian
flights had arrived at Baghdad's international airport
since the American takeover -- two C-130 transport planes
with 24,000 pounds of medical supplies from the Kuwaiti
government for hospitals in Baghdad.

With the war winding down, protests in the United States
and abroad drew smaller crowds and their focus switched
from keeping American troops out of Iraq to bringing them
home.

In Washington, 10 blocks from an antiwar demonstration that
brought together a few thousand people, supporters of the
war effort drew thousands to their own rally.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-War-Rdp.html?ex=1051178583&;
ei=1&en=e7c6efe09a1434e1


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Mine A. Doyran
Ph.D. Candidate, ABD
Department of Political Science
Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy
University at Albany, S.U.N.Y.
135 Western Avenue, Milne Hall
Albany, NY 12222
mine.doyran@verizon.net
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"Frequently the only possible answer is a critique of the
question and the only solution is to negate the question."
Grundrisse, "The Chapter on Money"
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