April 12 —
New partners in a city of shattered order and ransacked history,
U.S. troops and Iraqi police are setting up joint patrols to rein in
the waves of thievery in Baghdad. Marines rolled north to confront
what could be Saddam Hussein's last holdouts.
A wild firefight outside a Baghdad hotel Saturday and the threat
of suicide bombings kept American soldiers wrapped in the urgent
business of putting down resistance in the capital. U.S authorities
accepted the surrender of Saddam's Hussein's science adviser, a man
likely to know about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, if it has
them.
Restraining the mobs of looters was a rapidly growing
priority.
Robbing history itself, thieves pillaged the Iraq National
Museum, stealing or destroying artifacts going back 7,000 years
predating even Babylon. The loss resonated through Baghdad and
around the world.
"This is Iraq's civilization," said a tearful museum employee.
"And it's all gone now." At Emory University in Atlanta, historian
Gordon Newby said: "This is just one of the most tragic things that
could happen, for our being able to understand the past."
Iraqis who had warmly welcomed Americans in the capital last week
were growing resentful at the persistent disorder, noting the troops
often just stood by as people stormed government offices, schools,
hospitals and homes.
U.S. officials were dispatching the first contingent of 1,200
American police and judicial officers to help troops put a lid on
the lawlessness.
Iraqi police, quickly adapting to the new power order, worked
with U.S. Marines to set up joint patrols in a day or two.
"Anyone who carries a weapon or fires a weapon, we will fire at,"
Iraqi police Col. Mohammed Zaki said. Marine Staff. Sgt. Jeremy
Stafford said of the arrangement: "It's going to happen sooner
rather than later."
The looting of the Baghdad bureaucracy raised concerns that any
documents tied to Iraqi chemical, biological or nuclear weapons
programs might disappear along with all the treasures.
Saddam's science adviser, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, surrendered
Saturday to U.S. authorities. He immediately insisted Iraq had no
weapons of mass destruction.
Everywhere there were reminders that the climactic taking of
Baghdad did not mean the war was over:
Ninety miles to the north, in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, his
loyalists were believed laying in wait, although their will to fight
was an open question. A contingent of the 1st Marine Expeditionary
Force, described only as significant in size, headed toward that
city to challenge whatever it found.
To the west, U.S. forces intercepted a busload of 59 men driving
toward the Syrian border. They had $630,000 in cash and a letter
offering rewards for killing American soldiers.
In Baghdad, Marines uncovered a cache of about 50 suicide-bomb
vests, packed with explosives, in an elementary school. As evening
fell, a gun battle broke out by the Palestine Hotel along the Tigris
River; the crackle of machine gun fire and explosions were heard as
Marines ran from tree to tree.
Measured steps toward stability were taken, too.
In Kirkuk, a vital northern oil city taken from Iraqi regime
forces, Kurds, Arabs and ethnic Turks began working on a cooperative
arrangement to govern without the ethnic strife threatening to flare
in the post-Saddam era.
Kurdish fighters who took over the city said they would yield to
the Americans once enough of them arrived to secure law and
order.
Looting diminished Saturday in another northern city, Mosul, a
day after pro-Saddam defense forces dissolved and U.S. forces moved
in. A Mosul hospital reported 10 people had been killed in
Arab-Kurdish violence that broke out as control of the city changed
hands.
With heavy air strikes subsided, the U.S. Navy said it may soon
send two of the three aircraft carrier battle groups in the Persian
Gulf back to their home ports the USS Kitty Hawk to Yokosuka, Japan;
and the USS Constellation to San Diego.
"We're anxious to get those folks back to their home ports as
soon as we can," said Vice Adm. Timothy Keating.
U.S. forces reopened two strategic bridges in the heart of
Baghdad, a step that only spurred the looters by giving them access
to territory they had been unable to reach.
People carried away bookshelves, sofas and computers from
government offices.
The two-story mansion of Tariq Aziz, a familiar face to
Westerners as Iraqi deputy prime minister under Saddam, was also
pillaged. Thieves stripped light fixtures, appliances, wall sockets,
chandeliers, furniture and carpets leaving a smattering of books on
the floor, including one titled "The Great Iraqi Revolution."
In Cairo, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned civil war could
engulf Iraq unless U.S. and British forces did more to restore law
and order.
The U.S. Central Command said many Iraqi fighters who were
believed to have regrouped in Tikrit may have fled in the face of
heavy airstrikes, and the remnants may not muster an effective
defense in or around the city.
"We may find that there's not much fight left, but some of the
recent operations indicate that there's still some fighting to do
even in those areas," said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, deputy
director of operations for the command.
Tikrit 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.
U.S. officials said Saturday that the first humanitarian flights
had arrived at Baghdad's international airport since the American
takeover two C-130 transport planes with 24,000 pounds of medical
supplies from the Kuwaiti government for hospitals in Baghdad.
Al-Saadi, the science adviser, arranged his surrender with the
help of Germany's ZDF television network, which filmed him leaving
his Baghdad villa with his German wife, Helga, and presenting
himself to an American warrant officer, who escorted him away.
photo credit
and caption:
U.S. Army Bradley fighting
vehicles pass a group of looters in Baghdad Saturday, April
12, 2003. (AP Photo/John
Moore)
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