Chaos In Sections of Baghdad As Looters Pillage Gov't Buildings

"Authority has broken down" and looters are raiding government and other buildings in Baghdad including the Olympic compound and the UN Embassy.

Crowds of people are cheering U.S. Marines, throwing flowers at them and chanting "No More Saddam!"

This is not a total uprising of the city but from the footage I just saw, Baghdad is nothing like it was yesterday!

It was earlier reported that the British encouraged the pillaging in Basra in order to completely break down local governmental control and essentially "free" the people there...this could very well be instigated by U.S. Marines on the streets of Baghdad (in that area) in an atteempt to do the same.

Who knows...whatever the case, people are making off with some loot lol.

[ 04-09-2003, 04:40 AM: Message edited by: Lil Lil ]

[Ar-Cunin]

Originally posted by Lil Lil: "Authority has broken down" and looters are raiding government and other buildings in Baghdad including the Olympic compound and the UN Embassy. Crowds of people are cheering U.S. Marines, throwing flowers at them and chanting "No More Saddam!" This is not a total uprising of the city ............

A it in Saddam City (a suburb of Baghdad) - ironic isn't it

It is inhabited by the majority Shi'ites - who have no reason to love SH. It is pictures like these the Coalition have been hoping for since the start of the war - except for looting

The flowers they were throwing were probably looted as well. The BBC reported that even plastic flower were been taken [img]graemlins/saywhat.gif[/img]

I think so, yes but I can't say positively...I am multi-tasking again lol. [img]smile.gif[/img]

LMAO about the flowers...the last bit of footage showed one guy running out of a large building with nothing but a big vase of (probably fake) flowers...were they THAT deprived? sheesh!

Trucks and carts are being loaded with computers, refrigerators, chairs...jeeps!...anything that isn't nailed down

[ 04-09-2003, 05:31 AM: Message edited by: Lil Lil ]

[Attalus]

CNN and FOX are both reporting that Iraqi TV is off the air, and Al-Goebbels hasn't been seen. The foreign press is reporting that their "handlers" didn't show up for work this morning.

I am watching live coverage of the U.S. forces surrounding the central square in Baghdad and see the Secret Service police Headquarters being "stormed"

Just waiting for them to pull down that statue near the mosque that we all have become so familiar with.

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Attalus: CNN and FOX are both reporting that Iraqi TV is off the air, and Al-Goebbels hasn't been seen. The foreign press is reporting that their "handlers" didn't show up for work this morning.

I miss Baghdad Bob, he provided a valuble service - comic relief

P.S. Their not looting they're taking a tax rebate

[ 04-10-2003, 10:51 PM: Message edited by: John D Harris ]

[Azred]

Come on! Baghdad Bob could become an international correspondent for a major news agency! [img]graemlins/1dizzy.gif[/img]

[Donut]

When the looting started it was funny, but now they've looted a hospital stealing heart monitors and baby incubators. Letting off steam was okay but now it's just greed. The British forces have only just started to take action. The US forces should do so now.

It was also reported shortly after the (armed) hospital lootings that a group of med students banded together and got the equipment and supplies returned.

The U.S. is working on it. You can expect more control over the population to be shown today but keep in mind the differences between the sizes of Basra and Baghdad...it's not going to happen overnight.

I heard that the Royal Marines are pulling out and going home in thirty days.
Are they done so soon?!

[Skunk]

Is This Freedom, Ask Iraqis as Chaos Reigns
Fri April 11, 2003 04:42 PM ET
By David Fox
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi capital sank into anarchy on Friday as residents went on a looting spree in full view of U.S. forces.

As troops still battled to contain pockets of Iraqi fighters scattered around the city, thousands of ordinary citizens helped themselves to anything they could lay their hands on in shops, factories, schools, hospitals and government buildings.

Young and old, men and women rifled through bomb-damaged buildings as well as areas unaffected by fighting.

"Is this your liberation?" one frustrated shopkeeper screamed at the crew of a U.S. tank as a gang of youths helped themselves to everything in his small hardware store and carted booty off in the wheelbarrows that had also been on sale.

"Hell, it ain't my job to stop them," drawled one young marine, lighting a cigarette as he looked on. "Goddamn Iraqis will steal anything if you let them. Look at them."

But for those not helping themselves to their new-found freedom, mounting anger was being directed at the U.S. forces for doing nothing to stop the frenzy.

"For God's sake, how can they just let them do this? This is my life," one old man cried as a gang used crowbars to remove the security mesh from the Anwar electrical repair shop in the center and began carting off dozens of air conditioners.

POWER VACUUM

To Iraqis, the United States appears not to have given any thought to the power vacuum created by removing Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi president's trickle-down system of patronage meant that anyone in any position of authority -- from traffic police to government functionaries -- has been tainted by association and has melted into the population.

Some have taken to looting themselves, knowing where the best stuff is.

"She worked here, she can't have it, she worked here..." shouted one woman as she wrestled another woman for material in a government supply office.

Well-to-do Baghdadis said they feared the onset of the night, convinced that thieves would flood their streets from Saddam City, the slum suburb in northeastern Baghdad.

"We just want peace and security. We don't feel safe, we don't sleep at night," said Abdul Hattan, an entomologist, begging a patrolling unit of U.S. Marines to stay in the area during darkness.

Marines have tried to restore confidence by traversing some districts on foot, seizing weapons caches and investigating local claims of torture centers. But they are too few, too thinly-spread and restricted by fears for their safety.

"They want protection at night but there is not much we can do," said Marine Lieutenant Brian Von Kraus. "There is not much we can tell them. We can't act as policemen all the time."

In some neighborhoods residents erected makeshift roadblocks and formed local watch groups to stop looters.

But some looters told U.S. troops the roadblocks had been erected by militiamen, prompting tanks to crash through them and sometimes opening fire on houses where neighborhood watch groups were gathered.

DEAD BURIED IN HOSPITAL GARDENS

The city's hospitals were overflowing with civilians injured by what they said was U.S. shelling or firing and at one, the dead were being buried in the garden.

Dozens of corpses lay rotting by roadsides or in cars blown up by U.S. forces as they captured Baghdad.

Near the airport, volunteers wearing face masks and rubber gloves used shovels to scrape human remains from the burned-out wrecks of cars, trucks and buses, just yards away from U.S. forces and their tanks.

With no possibility of identification, corpses were being buried in shallow graves on the roadside.

"This is going to cause a major problem for sanitation and the water system," a U.S. army engineer officer told Reuters.

Nearby, the corpse of an airport worker rolled around in the current of a pool created when a U.S. bomb struck a water mains.

"That's 'bubbling Bob'," said one soldier. "Been there a while. I ain't gonna fish him out. Let the Iraqis do it."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=2552887

Liberation is sweet.