U.S. to send 1,200 to restore order
By David Crary
Associated Press
As looting spread today to new areas of Baghdad, U.S. officials said 1,200 police and judicial officers will go to Iraq to help restore order. U.S. commanders indicated the last major military challenge, taking Saddam Hussein's hometown, may be easier than expected thanks to desertions and relentless bombing.
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| U.S. soldiers confront two Iraqi men at the Ministry of Housing, where several items including a cache of weapons were being snatched. After shooting rounds in the air to discourage the looters, the soldiers detained the men.
Los Angeles Times |
American troops remained focused on erasing military threats instead of curbing lawlessness. In Baghdad, Marines showed reporters a cache of about 50 explosives-laden suicide bomb vests in an elementary school less than 20 feet from the nearest home.
At a nearby junior high school, seven classrooms were filled with hundreds of crates of grenade launchers, surface-to-air missiles and ammunition. Residents said Iraqi soldiers and militiamen had positioned weaponry throughout the neighborhood before U.S. forces moved in.
"We didn't imagine this much stuff here," said Lt. David Wright, of Goldsboro, N.C. "Every 200 meters we find something."
Searching for weapons, and for holdout bands of pro-Saddam fighters, has been the primary task of many of the American troops in Baghdad. But U.S. officials, criticized for doing too little to curtail the looting, say the restoration of law and order will become a higher priority.
The State Department said it is sending 26 police and judicial officers to Iraq, the first component of a team that will eventually number about 1,200. The officers will be part of a group led by Jay Garner, the retired general chosen by the Bush administration to run the initial Iraqi civil administration under American occupation.
Much of the looting in Baghdad and other cities has targeted government ministries and the homes of former regime leaders, but looters also have ransacked foreign embassies, stolen ambulances from hospitals and robbed some private businesses.
Associated Press
U.S. forces reopened two strategic bridges today in the heart of Baghdad — giving looters easier access to territory that had previously been spared. U.S. forces watched but did not intervene as plunderers swarmed into several government buildings, including the Planning Ministry on the west bank of the Tigris River, and emerged with bookshelves, sofas and computers.
A boy offers water to a U.S. Marine patrolling a neighborhood in central Baghdad. Marines were searching yesterday for remnants of resistance as well as intelligence on weapons caches and enemy hideouts.
Abbas Reta, 51, a Baghdad engineer with five children, was distraught at the looting of schools and hospitals.
"If one of my family is injured where will I take them now? When the schools reopen, my children will have no desks to sit on," he said. "The Americans are responsible. One round from their guns and all the looting would have stopped."
In another Baghdad neighborhood, residents complained that U.S. soldiers thus far have not heeded requests to clear cluster bombs dropped during the war. The residents said three people had been killed and one injured trying to pick up the unexploded ordnance.
Looting diminished today in the northern city of Mosul, a day after pro-Saddam defense forces dissolved and U.S. Special Forces moved in. The Special Forces were joined Saturday by a two-dozen-vehicle Army convoy that was greeted by thousands of cheering Iraqis.
Next, the U.S.-led coalition is expected to focus on Saddam's hometown, Tikrit, where some Iraqi forces are believed to be regrouping. However, the U.S. Central Command said many of the troops there have fled in the face of heavy air strikes, and the remnants may not be able to muster an effective defense.
Tikrit, 90 miles northwest of Baghdad, 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.
Associated Press
Officials at the Pentagon have specific concerns about one aspect of the widespread looting — that vandalism of government offices could destroy evidence about weapons of mass destruction.
Iraqi civilians led U.S. soldiers yesterday through a flooded basement at Iraqi intelligence headquarters, where political prisoners reportedly were held in an underground prison along the Tigris River.
Finding chemical and biological weapons manufactured by Saddam's regime is a top priority for the U.S.-led forces. Troops are seeking documents and Iraqi weapons experts in hopes of getting leads on where banned materials might be.
"We have offered two things," said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "One is financial rewards. And we've also said that if people have spotty backgrounds, assisting us might make their futures brighter."
In western Iraq, U.S. troops seized control of crossings on two highways leading into Syria. There was tough resistance near Qaim, on the Syrian border, raising speculation that the town might be a site for illegal weapons.
Russia, France and Germany — all opposed to the war in the first place — continued to oppose what they view as a U.S. effort to dominate the rebuilding process. They maintain that a United Nations-led effort would have a better chance of establishing lasting peace in Iraq.
Russian President Vladimir Putin met yesterday in St. Petersburg, Russia, with French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to discuss Iraq. Putin said the war has undermined the concept of national sovereignty; Schroeder said the United Nations should take charge of postwar reconstruction.
