WASHINGTON April 11 —
The military on Friday rejected criticism that it is allowing a
wave of looting and violence in its wake in Iraq, saying troops must
remain focused on combat, not restoring order.
Aid organizations said the lawlessness was worsening the
humanitarian situation in Baghdad and urged the Bush administration
to move quickly against it.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld characterized the looting as
"untidiness" and part of a transitional phase after the fall of
Saddam Hussein's government and on the way to freedom.
"Stuff happens," Rumsfeld said.
"We do feel an obligation to assist in providing security, and
coalition forces are doing that," he told a Pentagon news
conference. "Where they see looting, they are stopping it."
At the war's command center in Qatar, officials said earlier
Friday they expected the surge of violence as a release of pent-up
hatred and anger at a regime that brutalized and repressed the
population for decades.
The comments came on the third day of pillaging in the capital,
and violence repeated itself anew with the fall of each additional
city in northern Iraq.
Much of the looting was at government ministries and the homes of
former regime leaders, with bands of looters taking everything from
vases, desks and other furnishing from government offices to AK-47s
and ammunition from Iraqi military bunkers.
But they also stripped foreign embassies, took ambulances from
hospitals and attacked some private businesses. In the northern city
of Mosul, residents burned buildings, stole rare manuscripts from
the university library and grabbed wads of money from a bank as
local people with accounts deposited there sadly looked on. There
was a report of looting at archaeological sites.
Rumsfeld suggested that many of the television images beamed
around the world showing acts of looting were being shown
repeatedly, exaggerating the effect.
"You cannot do everything instantaneously" Rumsfeld said, adding
there are upcoming efforts to increase security.
Retired Army Col. William Taylor called the assertion "dead
wrong," saying American forces could do more even though combat
continues.
"Infantry soldiers can be given the mission of blocking the doors
of any facility to keep looters out," said Taylor, now with the
Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"They don't have to shoot, don't have to beat anybody, but you
can darn well use your assault rifle to push them away."
Marine commanders in Iraq acknowledged confusion so far in
confronting the job. U.S. troops and tanks guarded only a few
hotels, key intersections, overpasses and apparently at least one
hospital, but a Marine commander said he didn't have enough men to
do more.
Other soldiers said it was not their job to do police work.
The Brookings Institution's Ivo Daalder said it was, since it was
U.S. forces that toppled the regime structure that previously
provided security, food and so on.
"They should be doing something because it destroys our image as
the liberators and the people who are going to bring a new order to
Iraq," Daalder said.
Aid organizations urged the government to quickly get control of
the capital, after their representatives in the region reported "the
humanitarian situation is worsening as a consequence of widespread
lawlessness," said a statement from Washington-based InterAction, a
coalition of more than 160 U.S. aid groups.
In-country workers for the charity CARE reported that hospitals
are "in absolutely dire straits," with some looted and others closed
to prevent looting, said the group's spokeswoman in Atlanta, Alina
LaBrada.
Daalder said he worried that the next step could be a wave of
revenge killings against former members of the regime that tortured
and killed its political enemies.
"We cannot stand by and let that happen," Daalder said. "If there
is a tradeoff between providing security and finishing off the war,
then it exists for one reason only... we don't have enough troops
there."
photo credit
and caption:
U.S. Army soldiers walk near a
massive arch of swords at Saddam Hussein's military parade
grounds Friday, April 11, 2003.(AP Photo/John
Moore)
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