The looting in Baghdad looks like it is finally dying down. The US forces there are now making genuine efforts in quelling the chaotic looting and killing that has ravaged the city since their entry. They have promised to send police officers, have made efforts to re-recruit local civil service, and are paying local civilians in various areas to work with an appointed US soldier. Although there will be a lot of frustration and bad memories about these first few days, it is likely that the majority of the Iraqis in the urban centers will show some degree of gratitude for increased security provided.
Regretablly, even if the US had done nothing, the looting would probably have died down in a few days anyways. Everything of much value that could be stolen is already gone. 39 of the 40 hospitals in Baghdad have been robbed of equipment with uses their robbers could have only guessed at, double-decker buses have been commandeered, embassies and government buildings stripped of even their chairs, and the National Library emptied by avid looting bibliophiles.
A professor of Political Science at Baghdad University, Dr. Ramiz said, “I believe the United States has committed an act of irresponsibility with few parallels in history, with the looting of the National Museum, the National Library and so many of the ministries. People are saying that the U.S. wanted this ? that it allowed all this to happen because it wanted the symbolism of ordinary Iraqis attacking every last token of Saddam Hussein’s power.” While his anger is understandable, we have to realize that the US didn’t want rampant and indiscriminate looting, and there are many signs they did not expect it, train for it, or otherwise sufficiently plan for it. Also, no one can deny that they are operating in small numbers in large population centers.
However, these reasons cannot be used to excuse the horrible incompetence displayed by the coalition.
The United Nations (through the UNOHCI) has pointed out, “This inaction by the occupying powers is in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which explicitly state that medical establishments must be protected, that the wounded and sick must be the object of particular protection and respect must be protected and must be free to carry on their duties…” In effect, the US is plainly guilty of a breach of the international laws of war that have been in place for decades, by definition: war crimes have been commited.
You see, there is no doubt the US will restore order and really had no intention to allow Baghdad to descend into anarchy. However, what matters is how the first few days of an occupation procedes. To use an extreme example, even the Japanese military eventually established law and order in occupied Nanjing and elsewhere in the urban centers of occupied China. But, as we saw with Baghdad’s museum, 4,000 years of Iraqi history were looted in only a few hours. The responsibility for this falls directly on the shoulders of our leaders and the military.
Now, there is obviously a huge difference between the US conduct in Baghdad and the conduct of Japan in occupied China. There have been few, if any, reports of US troops committing any kind of organized atrocities towards Iraqi civilians. POWs have been treated respectfully and in accordance with international law. The US has gone to extraordinary lengths to minimize civilian casualities in this conflict, and regardless of our feelings about the war as a whole, I respectfully concede that, with a few important exceptions, the military has set a high standard for combatants in future conflicts.
The invasion of Baghdad, however, and it would also appear Mosul, was an utter failure. If you don’t have enough troops to establish law and order quickly and effectively in your areas of control, then you shouldn’t take a city (or in the case of Mosul, you don’t arrange its surrender prematurely). Of course, the US can’t be held responsible for looting in areas it has not yet penetrated, such as Tikrit. Some note that the battle still wages in areas of Baghdad, but that doesn’t excuse the complete lack of preparedness for dealing with order in the majority of the city, which no one doubts that the US is the only relevant power. The fact that it is “dangerous” is merely stating the obvious reason why Iraqi civilians need protection in the early days. Why are the US police advisors being sent only now? Why aren’t they already in Kuwait waiting to be deployed? Why aren’t US soldiers being suddenly briefed on how to cooperate with locals in establishing order (and if 100 local volunteers are enough to help quell looting, 15,000 troops were surely not helpless). In each case where the US did intervene, looting subsided only to return when the US left. Why were funds not immediately available to begin paying the civil servants they expected to suddenly show up for work? Did someone expect Saddam to send checks from Tikrit? The US has control over two airports in Baghdad. They have had the ability to quickly fly in materials since at least WWII (when, for example, the US quickly flew in half a million Chinese troops into Northern China to accept Japanese surrender)
The US was well prepared for Chemical attacks, but inexcusably unprepared for looting. Rumsfeld’s pathetic comment that, “Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They’re also free to live their lives and do wonderful things,” is disingenuous and embarrassing. He is describing a state of anarchy, and the freedom it entails is one which any civilized community rejects. The responsibility to maintain law and order resides in the controlling power. When that ceased to be the regime which we destroyed, that responsibility passed on to us, and we must accept any failure to meet that responsibility and stop making excuses.
Rumsfeld’s lecturing of journalists was the most childish and frighteningly idiotic thing I have seen him do yet.
“I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest. And it just was Henny Penny – ‘The sky is falling’. I’ve never seen anything like it! And here is a country that’s being liberated, here are people who are going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a vicious dictator, and they’re free. And all this newspaper could do, with eight or 10 headlines, they showed a man bleeding, a civilian, who they claimed we had shot – one thing after another. It’s just unbelievable …”
Let me translate for those who don’t find it obvious, “I can’t believe you dared to report anything that might suggest some element of our campaign had failed. I can’t believe you dared to describe Baghdad as it is, full of dying, injured, robbed, and looting people. I can’t believe you dared to tell the truth.”
The Iraqi people are anything but free. They are hiding in their homes afraid of being robbed or killed. When the US establishes order they will have the distinguished joy of being the first Middle Eastern colony of the US. The US has no desire to remain in control of Iraq and will, as promised, restore control to its people (with some measure of continued influence). However, until that promise is met, don’t insult the intelligence of the Iraqi people by telling them that they are free. As Martin Kramer, a scholar of the Middle East says, “There’s nothing exceptional about an excitable crowd in Baghdad. ‘Liberation Day’ will come only when the Iraqis go to the polls, and convene a parliament.” The lessons of history, in particular, the rather bad record of Western imperialism, have been painfully studied by the people of the region.
When Rumsfeld goes on to assure us that we are seeing the same image of a man carrying a vase out of some building, the British newspaper the Gaurdian notes quite appropriatly that this was, “An extraordinary performance reminiscent of the Iraqi information minister”
The US cannot deny that, while unintended, its incompetance and failure in its occupation of the major cities of Baghdad and Mosul are in violation of international law. It cannot deny that it was completely unprepared to deal with looting. Without admitting this openly though, they are now finally (and too late) beginning to deal with the problem.
The media and military tries to whitewash the military’s mistake with arguments “But other countries we fought didn’t have urban centers descend into looting and such so it must be those unruly Iraqis at fault. Have they no shame? How selfish those civil servants are to dissapear in this time of need!”
Here is where historians need to speak out. There are plenty of historical analogies to this conflict which fit to a larger or lesser extent. However, it is important to eliminate any historical example such as Japan or Germany, in which you have formal surrender of the opponent and a functioning state continuing organized resistance until the end of the conflict.
As we have been told a hundred times now, “the regime is gone” We don’t know where all the leaders are so we can’t simply waltz into the palace and hand them a surrender document to sign on behalf of the whole country. We have actively tried to assasinate the leader so he is not likely to show up for the ceremony even if he were alive. We have been repeatedly told that we have demolished their “command and control” structure so that they cannot continue to control their own military units, and we might add perceptively, anything else in the country. If you can’t reach your diplomats outside of the country, your own people via radio or television, or your troops via military communications how the hell are you supposed to control the trash man, the post man, and the police? Don’t blame the Iraqi people for suddenly losing law and order, our own bombs are responsible for that. If the cause is just (which I don’t believe, but will grant briefly), then the overthrow of the regime is concomitant with our own extended responsibilities for its people.
To compare this to Japan and Germany, where a functioning state continued resistance of some organized fashion, is simply not appropriate. This kind of breakdown of law and order was indeed mostly seen on the periphery, certainly not widespread looting in the capital of our enemy. But that is because of the difference in the nature of those conflicts as well as differences in the power structure of those countries, not because the Japanese or Germans had more selfless civil servants.
So, as we can see, trying to point to the absence of looting in previous examples ignores relevant differences. If we point to examples in which looting was widespread (and history is filled with them), this will only serve to show how unprepared the US was for what faced them…
While I doubt it will happen, the US should at the very least admit its failure.
Let us all hope this conflict ends quickly and does so with minimum further loss of life and property.