THE THEFT OF BAGHDAD

[pritchke]

More from the prespective of the Iraqis regarding the looting that followed the war.

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Saddam was a thief, so in a way it's fitting his palaces were plundered

ALEXANDRE TRUDEAU

IN MY OWN WAY I too feel free of Saddam's tyrannical hold on this place. His network of secret police has disappeared and I'm no longer held, for my safety and that of my adopted family, to a precarious spy-like existence. Late one night, I decide to take advantage of this new freedom, don a robe, and wander out into my neighbourhood. Some men sitting in the shadows call out to me. My stumbling greeting reveals that I'm not of this place; I explain that I'm off to visit my friend Jamal. Luckily, they know him. "You are Jamal's friend," one of them tells me in good English. "Well then, you are welcome. Have tea with us." They are middle-aged, armed with a pistol and a Kalashnikov. "I am a dermatologist," one says. "I know nothing about guns. But here I am sitting in front of my house protecting my family and my belongings. It's the time of thieves in Iraq. What can I do?"

http://www.macleans.ca/xta-doc2/2003...ld/58766.shtml

Includes more on Omar and his friends.
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But many people in Baghdad are disgusted, especially because the looting is often followed by the burning of sacked buildings. At one point, while I'm filming the destruction of an office tower, a downtrodden man approaches Omar and pleads: "Ask your friend to stop filming. This is such a bad picture of Iraq. The world shouldn't see this." Another time, a neighbour comes to Omar's house, with the sole purpose of apologizing to me. "We are not all like this," he begs me to understand. "They are stealing from themselves. They burn the buildings they steal from. Those are our jobs, our future, going up in smoke."

[ 04-24-2003, 02:10 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]