Posted on 04/03/2003 4:18:23 PM PST by blam
Chaos reigns as armed looters steal drugs in Nasiriyah
By Philip Smucker
(Filed: 04/04/2003)
It did not take long for the looters to appear. Just hours after US marines left the hospital in Nasiriyah following their dramatic raid to rescue Pte Jessica Lynch, the wards were under attack yesterday by 20 men in long gowns and head scarves, carrying grenades and machineguns.
Hospital workers said the men rampaged through the wards stealing drugs and generators as terrified patients on all floors fled.
If Nasiriyah is the future of "liberated Iraq", the anarchic scenes in the municipal buildings and streets of this city of 250,000 people suggested that the US military could face chaos as they seize control of large cities all but abandoned by the Iraqi army.
In the absence of the repressive totalitarian system put in place by Saddam Hussein, whose picture still beams ominously from billboards across the city, power is in the hands of anyone who wants it.
In front of the city hospital, brigands attacked five new government vehicles, leaving them smouldering as they drove off in three new cars that they hot-wired.
"They attacked us with grenades and machineguns," said Dr Wasdi Jabel, 29. "When they couldn't get the keys to a car, they just shot up the gas tank and set it on fire. We tried to stop them but we were powerless." Patients and doctors gave varying descriptions of the men. Some said they were Bedouins from the desert or armed drug addicts but others said they were former prisoners released in a general amnesty late last year.
When we arrived inside the largest "liberated city" in Iraq under a heavy US marine escort, locals appeared almost calm as looters carted off anything they could get their hands on.
Moments after crossing the muddy banks of the Euphrates, the driver of the city's health minister was brought in with multiple gunshot wounds. He died as his two sons held him.
Doctors from the city hospital, who pleaded with the marines for protection, said they had treated 900 injuries in the last two weeks. They said aerial raids had killed 250 civilians, all of whom had been brought to the hospital.
On the hospital floor beside him, family members crowded around patients injured in the last two weeks of heavy bombing and shelling. Many of them said they had no transport out of the hospital or would have fled already.
Doctors pleaded with the arriving marines to post sentries at the hospital to guard against the next attack. "If you abandon us, they will return and take everything," pleaded Dr Ahmed Moksin. "We hope and pray for security but we need it as soon as possible."
Listening to the pleas yesterday afternoon Col Ron Johnson, the chief operations in the region, promised immediately to provide a fresh marine guard around the perimeter of the hospital.
Only a day earlier in the wake of a US Special Forces raid on the hospital to extract an Army prisoner of war, marines had been assigned to guard the hospital. At eight on Wednesday evening, however, the protection was pulled back to the marine base camp on the outskirts of the city.
Within 12 hours the looters had rushed in to take everything of value except for a cache of pharmaceuticals heroically defended by the hospital staff.
Though heavily armed marines controlled the main bridges in Nasiriyah across the Euphrates, stopping traffic to search for possible suicide bombers, the streets of the city were under the control of no one. Hundreds of men pushed wheeled carts filled with kitchen sinks, lavatories, file cabinets, oil cans and anything else they could pile on top.
Dr Jabel agreed to drive with us through the city yesterday to point out the heavy destruction inflicted by US bombers. We passed dozens of giant billboards with Saddam Hussein's beaming face still intact. Locals had desecrated only a few of them.
At the headquarters of Saddam's own martyrs brigade, a picture of masked fighters beneath the Iraqi president was untouched. Inside, however, the bombing had destroyed dozens of armoured vehicles. Though they have ventured out to deal with looters and maintain control of the river crossings, most of the local contingent of the Marine Expeditionary Force has remained behind sand berms that enclose their bases at the south of the city.
Commanders require their soldiers to dim their lights at night for fear of rogue attacks from the surrounding countryside.
Locals say that the regime's henchmen continue to inspire fear in Nasiriyah's citizens by promising severe reprisals against anyone who deals with the marines.
Though US commanders suspected the armed attack on the hospital was carried out by Saddam loyalists, hospital employees disagreed, possibly out of fear.
Why I'm surprised that some Freeper drug warriors haven't claimed these people are Iraqi Libertarians.
Saddam's regime over the years has destroyed Iraqs people. Anyone of moral stature, of intellect, of strong will, have been murdered or exiled. There is no one left in Iraq but the poor downtrodden slaves who are too fearful to do anything controversial, and the criminals who are the Baath party. Nothing in between.
No, definitely not. He described a group of criminals in the same barracks as the prisoners. One example I remember is that if one of them had committed some serious infraction, the others would punish him by jumping off their bunks to crush his chest. I'm pretty sure that the nickname for these people was "the blues". I don't know if I can find the passage as these are some long books to search through and I no longer have my copy handy. But I'll see what I can do.
BTW, it looks like the show has ended its run for now. :(
I found this at: http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles1/nij/187085.txt
"Along with these developments, the vory v zakone began to expand their reach and power in the Sverdlovsk region in the 1980s. Throughout the former Soviet Union, the vory had long been regarded as the elite of the criminal world. They were hardcore professional criminals spawned by the gulag prison camps. To contrast them with the white-collar shadow businessmen, these professional criminals became known in criminal slang as the "blues," a name that some believe derived from the blue color of the tattoos that were associated with the vory v zakone. The vory were adherents of the traditional criminal mores developed in the camps and followed a strict thieves' code."
Not to worry! I guess we've attritted Ali Baba and his band of 40 thieves down to 50% strength. According to Gen. Myers, that no longer constitutes an effective fighting force.
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