Baghdad --
A frenzy of looting swept across Baghdad on Friday as mobs stripped
bare the interiors of government offices, cultural institutions and embassies
and U.S. troops mostly did not intervene.
The looting, which on Thursday had been aimed chiefly at targets connected
to Saddam Hussein's regime, accelerated throughout the city Friday in an
alarming outburst of street anarchy.
Everything from high-tech government laboratories to university labs to
foreign embassies were methodically sacked by thieves who, in some cases,
loaded their trucks with stolen goods in front of U.S. soldiers.
The destruction appeared to cause a strong backlash from many Baghdad
residents who feel thankful for the U.S. troops liberating them from a cruel
dictatorship but are angry at the apparent American inaction toward looters.
"Is this freedom?" asked an irate Abbas Yaccouby as crowds sacked a large
complex of government laboratories near the campus of Baghdad University. "The
Americans promised us liberation, not this."
It was a dramatic reversal of public sentiment from the jubilant scenes of
the first U.S. entry into Baghdad.
"Iraq is not Rwanda or Burundi, where people do such things," said Faisal
Al-Khudairy, one of Iraq's wealthiest private businessmen, who lives near
Yaccouby opposite the laboratory complex. "We are a developed nation, and what
you see here is simply a crime," he said.
"There are tens of millions of dollars of sophisticated equipment that is
being destroyed right under the Americans' noses," he added. He gestured at
the line of U.S. armored vehicles idling on the avenue where he stood opposite
the Central Organization for Standardization and Quality Control, which
provides high-tech services for the entire Iraqi economy, from the oil
industry to pharmaceuticals.
Al-Khudairy then pointed nearby, to the broad campus of Baghdad University,
which had also been methodically looted by thieves with cargo trucks. "These
are the building blocks of any country, which the new Iraqi government is
going to need. This is stupid, nonsensical, crazy."
MINISTRIES IN FLAMES
With virtually every government ministry in flames, Baghdad was operating
essentially without a government, public services or police protection. The U.
S. military command was scrambling Friday to adjust from warfare to
peacekeeping, but scenes throughout the capital reflected lawlessness.
While the Geneva conventions prohibit pillage during occupation, U.S.
military officials argue that their forces are stretched too thin to do much
against looters. And these are combat troops, untrained in policing, who were
still engaged in skirmishes with Hussein loyalists.
"If we see looting, we are to approach them, to show a presence and stop
the looting," said Maj. Martin Hermann, operations officer of the 3rd
Battalion, 4th Marines, which has taken control of part of southeast Baghdad.
Army Lt. Col. Michael Belcher, a battalion commander, said his priorities
were first to protect key structures, such as the power system, and second to
safeguard humanitarian sites like hospitals and aid distribution centers.
Commercial buildings are last, he said.
"If I see them tearing down electrical infrastructure in some of these
facilities, I'll step in to stop it," Belcher said.
Baghdad police, considered an arm of Hussein's security apparatus, have
completely disappeared. U.S. officers said they were trying to enlist local
Iraqi officials to help rebuild police forces quickly.
HOSPITALS RANSACKED
But with hospitals being ransacked and many Baghdadis wary of being on the
streets, the resumption of normal life and services appeared remote.
The mayhem started Wednesday, the day after U.S. troops rolled into central
Baghdad. Poor residents from Saddam City, a mostly Shiite area to the east,
started breaking into government offices and houses of top officials of the
Hussein regime and carting off furniture and equipment.
By late Friday, looters had hit:
-- The Iraqi Museum, and the Saddam Arts Center.
-- Many hospitals.
-- Nearly all government ministries, businesses and headquarters.
-- All state-owned supermarkets.
-- Most public universities, including the engineering and nursing colleges.
-- Many embassies, including those of Germany, Finland, South Korea, China,
Jordan and Turkey, the French cultural center and the headquarters of UNICEF.
-- Most state-owned factories, including Baghdad plants that make auto
batteries, electronics and electrical gear.
-- Three five-star hotels: the Al-Rashid, the Al-Mansour and the Babel.
In some neighborhoods, residents erected street barricades of tiles, huge
rocks and sandbags to keep looters out. In others, they started creating their
own vigilante forces.
Gunbattles broke out between packs of looters and people defending their
property, and the city's hospitals on Friday took in more casualties from
rioting and looting than from the war.
At roadblocks in the Kerradeh neighborhood, residents wielding Kalashnikov
rifles stopped a stolen red double-decker bus stuffed with stolen truck tires
and air conditioners, pulled out the driver and his assistants, beat them and
sent them fleeing barefoot down the street.
At the al-Kindy hospital, doctors and support staff were so outraged by
being looted late Thursday that they organized a mob of their own. They
stormed across the neighborhood and found two trucks with the loot.
Supported by neighbors wielding Kalashnikovs, they threatened the thieves
with bodily harm, recovered the loot and drove back to the hospital in a
raucous, cheering convoy.
But for many furious Baghdadis, the looting proves that the U.S. invasion
is not about liberation, as American officials had claimed. Conspiratorial
theories were commonly heard on the streets.
"If they wanted to free us, they would stop this," said one irate middle-
class woman near Baghdad University. "They just want to drive down Iraq, ruin
us as a viable country, and grab our oil. They are ruining us. They call this
democracy?"
Chronicle news services contributed to this report. / E-mail Robert Collier at rcollier@sfchronicle.com.