honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, April 9, 2003

Looting, cheering in Baghdad streets

 •  Graphic: Iraq falling under U.S., British control

By Ellen Knickmeyer and David Crary
Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Widespread, often jubilant looting of government buildings erupted today in Baghdad neighborhoods taken by U.S troops, a clear sign that Saddam Hussein's authority was collapsing. Army and Marine units pushed from the east and west to link up in the city center.

Iraqi civilians push carts loaded with goods looted from a government warehouse today in a southeastern suburb of Baghdad. As the Iraqi regime's grip on the capital appeared to crumble, looters began raiding government sites.

Associated Press

At police stations, universities, government ministries, the headquarters of the Iraq Olympic Committee, looters made off with computers, furniture, even military jeeps.

"Thank you, thank you, Mr. Bush," some of the looters shouted.

On a Baghdad street, a white-haired man held up a poster of Saddam and beat it with his shoe. A younger man spat on the portrait, and several others launched kicks at the face of the Iraqi president.

"Come see, this is freedom. This is the criminal, this is the infidel," he said. "This is the destiny of every traitor. He killed millions of us."

"We are with the U.S.!" said one man, carrying a rifle with one hand.

U.S. commanders also focused attention on another target — Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, still a stronghold of loyalist troops. The fate of Saddam remained unknown; his supporters retained control of the upscale Baghdad neighborhood targeted by four 2,000-pound bombs in a U.S. strike aimed at killing the Iraqi president.

Elsewhere in the capital, however, U.S. forces steadily expanded their reach, securing a military airport, capturing a prison, setting fire to a Republican Guard barracks. They are now operating in every quadrant of the city.

The Marines pushed forward today, securing routes inside the city and pursuing roving bands of three or four Iraqis armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons.

In one sector of southeastern Baghdad taken by the Marines, numerous civilians were out and about in the streets, some giving thumbs-ups to U.S. troops.

U.S. Marines with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division load an injured Iraqi on to their vehicle after the bus he was riding in came under fire at a military compound that U.S. Marines had taken yesterday in southeast Baghdad.

Associated Press

Maj. Gen. Buford Blount II, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, visited a command post set up at the New Presidential Palace, overlooking the Tigris River in central Baghdad. Col. David Perkins, whose 2nd Brigade was at the command post, told Blount his forces can go anywhere in the city and meet only sporadic sniping.

The two commanders discussed what buildings could be used to house U.S. military units and a new government to replace Saddam's.

"That's the next mental jump, is for the Iraqis to realize that even if he (Saddam Hussein) is still alive, he's not in charge anymore," Perkins said.

There were signs that the Iraqi government's efforts to sustain its public relations campaign were collapsing. State television went off the air yesterday, and today, foreign journalists said their "minders" — government agents who monitor their reporting — did not turn up for work.

Tikrit, in the desert about 90 miles to the north, was defended by well-trained troops, and is home to many of Saddam's most devoted followers.

The city of 260,000 is considered one of the few remaining strongholds of the Iraqi regime.

Capt. Frank Thorp, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, said coalition airstrikes were targeting the Republican Guard's Adnan division in Tikrit, "shaping the battlefield" before U.S. ground forces move in.

Coalition rescue teams were searching today for the crew of a F-15E fighter jet that went down on a mission near Tikrit. The U.S. Central Command said the cause of the incident was unknown; but if shot down, it would be only the second coalition plane felled by Iraqi fire.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two main Iraqi Kurdish groups opposing Saddam, claimed yesterday that Saddam was hiding in Tikrit.

U.S. officials said they didn't know if he had escaped Monday's bombing of a site in Baghdad's al-Mansour neighborhood where he and at least one of his sons reportedly were meeting.

Residents of al-Mansour estimated that 14 people, including at least seven children, were killed and scores wounded in homes and shops adjacent to the targeted site.

The toll of journalists killed in the war reached 10, with three killed in U.S. military strikes yesterday in Baghdad.

In the southern city of Basra, Group Capt. Al Lockwood, a British spokesman, said British forces were shifting from a combat role to peacekeeping duties, and were finding the task of restoring order in Basra challenging.

"It's a large town — we are quite thin on the ground," he told BBC radio. "We need to instill the confidence of the community in the remnants of the police force that have not been tainted by Saddam Hussein's regime."

• • •