[lbo-talk] Fwd: "USA Encouraged Ransacking"

[joanna bujes]

>Moderator's Note: It is impossible to testify to the
>veracity of this report. However, similar articles
>are appearing in publications in various parts of
>the world and, in considering the many blank
>spaces in the major media reporting on the still
>murkey sittuation in Iraq, I'm passing it on.
>You might also want to check out:
>
>http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2842.ht
>"USA encouraged ransacking"
>
>This is a translation of an article from April 11 from
>Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's largest newspaper, based in
>Stockholm. The article was written by Ole Rothenborg
>and translated by Joe Valasek. Khaled Bayomi, has
>taught and researched on Middle Eastern conflicts for
>ten years at the University of Lund where he is also
>working on his doctorate.
>
>Khaled Bayomi looks surprised when the American officer
>on TV complains that they don't have the resources to
>stop the plundering in Baghdad. "I happened to be right
>there just as the American troops encouraged people to
>begin the plundering."
>
>Khaled Bayomi traveled from Europe to Baghdad to be a
>human shield and arrived on the same day that the war
>began. About this he can tell many stories but the most
>interesting is certainly his eyewitness account of the
>wave of plundering.
>
>"I had gone to see some friends who live near a
>dilapidated area just past Haifa Avenue on the west
>bank of the Tigris. It was the 8th of April and the
>fighting was so intense that I was unable to return to
>the other side of the river. In the afternoon it became
>perfectly quiet and four American tanks took places on
>the edge of the slum area. The soldiers shot two
>Sudanese guards who stood at their posts outside a
>local administration building on the other side of
>Haifa Avenue. Then they blasted apart the doors to the
>building and from the tanks came eager calls in Arabic
>encouraging people to come close to them. "
>
>"The entire morning, everyone who had tried to cross
>the road had been shot. But in the strange silence
>after all the shooting, people gradually became
>curious. After 45 minutes, the first Baghdad citizens
>dared to come out. Arab interpreters in the tanks told
>the people to go and take what they wanted in the
>building."
>
>"The word spread quickly and the building was
>ransacked. I was standing only 300 yards from there
>when the guards were murdered. Afterwards the tank
>crushed the entrance to the Justice Department, which
>was in a neighboring building, and the plundering
>continued there".
>
>"I stood in a large crowd and watched this together
>with them. They did not partake in the plundering but
>dared not to interfere. Many had tears of shame in
>their eyes. The next morning the plundering spread to
>the Modern Museum, which lies a quarter mile farther
>north. There were also two crowds there, one that
>plundered and one with watched with disgust."
>
>"Are you saying that it was US troops who initiated the
>plundering?"
>
>"Absolutely. The lack of jubilant scenes meant that the
>American troops needed pictures of Iraqis who in
>different ways demonstrated hatred for Saddam's
>regime."
>
>"The people pulled down a large statue of Saddam?"
>
>"Did they? It was an American tank that did that, right
>beside the hotel where all the journalists stay. Until
>lunchtime on April 9, I did not see one destroyed
>Saddam portrait. If people had wanted to pull down
>statues they could have taken down some of the small
>ones without any help from American tanks. If it had
>been a political upheaval, the people would have pulled
>down statues first and then plundered."
>
>"Isn't it good that Saddam is gone?"
>
>"He's not gone. He has broken his army down into very
>small groups. That's why there hasn't been a large
>battle. About the official state, you could say that
>Saddam dissolved that already in 1992 and he's built a
>parallel tribal structure that is totally decisive in
>Iraq. When the US began the war, Saddam abandoned the
>state completely and now depends on the tribal
>structure. That was why he abandoned the large cities
>without a fight."
>
>"Now the US is compelled to do everything themselves
>because there's no political body within the country
>which will challenge the existing structure. The two
>who came in from outside the country were annihilated
>at once. (The reference here is to General Nazar al-
>Khazraji, who returned from Denmark and the Shiite
>Muslim leader, Abdul Majid al-Khoei.) They were cut to
>pieces with swords and knives by a furious crowd in
>Najaf because they were thought to be American puppets.
>According to the Danish newspaper BT, al-Khazraji was
>brought from Denmark to Iraq by the CIA."
>
>"Now we have an occupying power in place in Iraq that
>has not said how long it intends to remain, has not
>given any plan for civilian rule and no date for
>general elections. Enormous chaos is now to be
>expected."
>
>
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