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IT'S A LOOT OF WORK STOPPING MARAUDERS
By ALY SUJO
PHOTO LIBERATING:
U.S. soldiers establish checkpoints on bridges in Baghdad, where widespread looting continued in the freed city.
- Timothy Fadek

April 13, 2003 -- Harried M-16-toting U.S. Marines struggled to restore order in Baghdad yesterday as looters rampaged across the lawless capital.

Five days after U.S. troops took much of the ancient city, American troops prepared to fill the vacuum left when Saddam Hussein's regime fled. Armed men and youths roamed the streets, robbing buildings and hijacking cars.

The U.S. military and the Iraqi police said they had agreed to joint patrols to restore order "sooner rather than later," one Marine said.

Residents, fearing widespread looting would move on to private homes, set up neighborhood patrols to prevent it. One family put a girder across the street at the end of their block and stood by it with guns.

"It's like trying to get Los Angeles back up," said Marine Maj. Frank Simone of the Rodney King riots. Simone is one of a handful of Marine civil-affairs officers working with Iraqi water, electrical and police civil servants to restore stability. Marines said patrols would begin within days, but Baghdad residents complained their city was rapidly being stripped by its own citizens.

"People are stealing everywhere, breaking in everywhere," said police Maj. Ai Hussein.

U.S. forces in the capital rarely intervened in the chaos, and in some cases even motioned treasure-laden men through checkpoints. Witnesses described the streets as a blend of disarray and sadness, rage and jubilation. One man carried a purloined tuba up the street, as others rampaged with fresh loot.

U.S. officials said they were doing their best under chaotic conditions in which water, electricity, gasoline and food have become scarce. In front of the Palestine Hotel, where dozens of U.S. Marines looked on from fighting vehicles, a group of Iraqis demanded a new government and a secure city.

"We want peace," they chanted in English.

Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, at U.S. Central Command, said reports of looting were overblown. He said many parts of the country were peaceful and that lawlessness "is already tapering off significantly."

The State Department said Friday it was sending 26 police and judicial officers to Iraq, the first component of a team expected to be 1,200 strong.

Hospitals and ambulances have been hit hard by robbers, and U.S. forces stood guard by at least one hospital. Baghdad's power was still off after more than a week.

With Post Wire Services


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