- BAGHDAD -- Every morning,
Saad Khalaf leaves his home in a Baghdad suburb, walks across a highway
to a bombed-out military base, and begins looking for bricks to steal.
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- He knows his looting is illegal, but the Iraqi police
are little more than a minor annoyance. When they show up, he only has
to give them a bribe of a few thousand dinars, the equivalent of three
or four dollars, to make them go away.
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- "They deal with us for money," the 34-year-old
said. "We have no respect for them."
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- More than a year after the end of the Iraq war, looting
operations brazenly continue all over the country. Some of the looters
are unemployed men, like Mr. Khalaf, who make less than $100 a month by
stealing bricks. Others are big-time businessmen who dismantle entire buildings,
dig up copper telephone cables and knock down electricity towers. None
of them are too worried about Iraq's new police force.
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- The looters are one tiny example of Iraq's biggest problem:
the lawlessness that gives free rein to everyone from brick-stealers to
murderers and terrorists.
-
- Time after time, Iraqis cite crime and violence as the
most frightening and dispiriting feature of the U.S.-led occupation. The
Americans insist that the new police force will be responsible for ensuring
security, yet there is little sign they are capable of controlling the
lawlessness.
-
- Corruption is pervasive, and criminal gangs or terrorist
groups often outgun the police.
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- Few Iraqis mourn the downfall of Saddam Hussein, but
there is a widespread belief that at least the former dictator was able
to maintain security on the streets. Under his regime, there was a sense
of stability and safety, as long as you didn't challenge his authority.
Today, there is fear on the streets, random violence that can strike from
any direction. Nobody seems to respect the police; not the petty thieves,
not the kidnappers, not the car bombers or the drive-by assassins or the
killers who lie in wait with rocket-propelled grenades.
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- "Under the old regime we were dealing with one mafia,"
said Mohammed al-Sarraf, the head of one of Baghdad's most prominent business
families. "Now we are dealing with 100 or 200 mafias."
-
- Mr. al-Sarraf remembers that before the U.S.-led invasion
he could drive across Iraq at night without any worries about crime or
violence. Today, three bodyguards accompany him whenever he leaves home.
He has six guards permanently posted at his office and four more at his
house. He has sent his children to schools in neighbouring Jordan, because
of the risk of kidnapping.
-
- Armed men from political factions, he said, have threatened
his bodyguards. More than a dozen of his friends have been kidnapped or
killed. In one case, the kidnappers received a $130,000 ransom but killed
their hostage anyway.
-
- "Nothing will change in Iraq if there is no security,"
Mr. al-Sarraf said. "The American soldiers have no idea how to deal
with the Iraqi people. The people are not afraid of anyone any more. If
someone is arrested, his friends just threaten the police until he is released."
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- Karwan Dizayee, a Baghdad physician, said he often encounters
armed criminals in the hospital wards with friends who were injured in
gunfights. "If you say that their friend has died, they can shoot
you," he said. "They're often drunk. I cannot work properly because
they could shoot me. It's a really big problem. We are doctors and we don't
carry weapons."
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- The police are too weak to disarm the gunmen, he said.
"We tell the police to come and remove the weapons from the men. They
try their best, but they don't have enough power. At night the streets
are full of thieves and guns, and you don't know when a gunshot could go
toward you."
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- Ahmad, a 28-year-old lieutenant in the Iraqi police force,
blames U.S. soldiers. He said the Americans are the ultimate authority,
with their representatives posted at police stations, and they often order
the release of known criminals, even those who have confessed to crimes.
In four recent cases of serious crimes, he said, he was obliged to set
the criminals free because of U.S. decisions.
-
- "The Americans can interfere with our decisions
at any time," Ahmad said. "They take more responsibility than
the judges themselves. And when the criminals are freed, they go to our
houses and threaten to kill us."
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- More than a year after the invasion, the Iraqi justice
system is still not functioning properly. Because of prison overcrowding
and inadequacies of the new court system, accused criminals are often released
after a few days in jail.
-
- Still, Iraqi officials say they are optimistic. "I
believe we will turn the corner fairly soon," said Interior Minister
Samir al-Sumaidy, who is responsible for the police.
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- "In two or three months, we will move toward Iraqi
control. But we have a long way to go until we are at the level of a stable
country. Delivering security is not like delivering a hamburger. It is
far more complex."
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