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[casi] Baghdad: slidng toward anarchy?



>From Guardian Wrap:

FREE-FOR-ALL AS IRAQIS GO ON LOOTING SPREE

After the fighting, the looting. "There seemed to be a kind of looter's
law," observes Robert Fisk, who once again takes over the front page of the
Independent. "Once a thief had placed his hand on a chair or a chandelier or
a door-frame, it belonged to him... The dozens of thieves in the German
embassy worked in silence, assisted by an army of small children. Wives
pointed out the furnishings they wanted, husbands carried them down the
stairs."

"Do not judge us too harshly," a looter tells the Telegraph. "We are simply
taking back what they stole from us." But a British major dealing with a
gang who had stolen 30 dumper trucks and filled them with food took a
different view.

"Psychologically, we find a tank makes a strong impression with the bad
guys," Major Brannigan tells the paper. "These mobs aren't after revenge; it
is avarice, I'm afraid."

What the FT describes as a "dangerous power vacuum" in Baghdad was worsened
last night when a suicide bomber killed a US soldier at a checkpoint near
the poor, sprawling suburb of Saddam City.

US marines were so nervous they "opened fire repeatedly" on anyone they
considered at threat, killing five people and shooting a six-year-old girl
in the head, reports the FT.


Sliding towards anarchy :
Guardian   http://tinyurl.com/9ahq


FT: 'The marines shot anything they considered a threat'
Financial Times http://tinyurl.com/9ahz

pg



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