Union-Tribune April 21, 2003 A1 Rebuilding a broken nation Peacekeeping forces encounter overwhelming human needs, and signs of hope By MARCUS STERN COPLEY NEWS SERVICE BAGHDAD, Iraq – As the invasion force of U.S. Marines gave way to the peacekeeping forces of the U.S. Army yesterday, Iraq's capital continued to grapple with basic problems of electricity, clean water, food and looting. The Army's 3rd and 4th infantry divisions, with their civil engineers and military police, must now reckon with an urban landscape rendered surreal by war. Men can be seen retrieving the putrefying bodies of war casualties from loose sand in a stand of palm trees. Garbage is piling high in the streets. Electricity is still off. Clean water is largely unavailable. Unexploded ordnance is so ubiquitous that one group of children was using an artillery shell to mark the corner of their soccer field. Other children have been seriously injured after finding shells. With the fighting all but over, the people of Baghdad are venturing back onto the streets. Many expressed bewilderment at the sudden disappearance of Saddam Hussein, whose Baath Party regime has been a political straitjacket on this society since the 1970s. "We're still not used to the freedom we've been thrown into," said one resident, explaining why he – like so many others here – declined to give their names. "Maybe in two years, I will give you my name." The charred remains of burned-out military vehicles and still-smoldering ministry buildings seemed an inauspicious start for a country that U.S. officials hope to transform from a corrupt dictatorship into a prospering democracy. But there are signs of hope. The city sustained remarkably little damage despite the scope of the bombing. Additionally, the country has a strong tradition of education and is rich in natural resources. As nation-building projects go, Iraq appears to have many advantages absent from such places as Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia and Afghanistan. Nonetheless, the challenges remain daunting. Saddam City is an appendage of Baghdad. It's a slum of 3.5 million, mostly Shiite Muslims, who have fared poorly in an Iraq controlled by Sunni Muslims. The residents of Saddam City expressed joy that Hussein and the Baath Party were gone. Posters in Arabic featured slogans like, "Yes to a free united Iraq" or "Death to Saddam, the infidel." But basic human needs overshadowed newfound freedom. "No water. No electric. No eating. No working. No money. No medical," said one resident of Saddam City, which already has been informally renamed by its residents. They're calling it Sadr City, after Mohammad Baqr al Sadr, a popular Shiite spiritual leader executed by Hussein in 1980. A drive through Saddam City revealed growing mounds of garbage. A boy about 9 years old casually walked with a Kalashnikov rifle as girls the same age played jump-rope. Another girl picked through garbage to find a pair of shoes. Men, seeing foreigners pass, raised a hand and feverishly clicked four fingers against their thumb as if they were working a sock puppet. It was their way of signaling their desperate need for electricity. Water and electricity have been off for almost three weeks. Down an alley and through a locked metal door leading to a courtyard, a man named Sadiq pumped water from a well 27 feet deep. He put a handful to his lips and spit it out. "It's bad," he said. With the use of generators, water is being pumped to other parts of Baghdad. But even that water is dirty because of the lack of electricity to run purification plants. Here in Saddam City, well water is all there is for now. And it's often mixed with sewage. "Some wells are better than others," Sadiq said. Not far away, a bombed Iraqi military truck sat on the edge of a soccer field. Scattered around the truck were more than two dozen unexploded artillery shells. With one shell serving as a boundary marker for the soccer field, a child used another as a step stool to climb inside the cab of the truck, where he bounced up and down on his knees pretending to drive. Adnan Shnawa, a grocer idled by the war, shook his head. He wanted the city to remove the unexploded ordnance, but he didn't expect it to happen soon. Nobody was working in the municipal building. Like almost every government building in Baghdad, it was deserted after being looted and burned. Master Sgts. Donald L. Sawyer and Martin Vargas, both based at Camp Pendleton, were assigned to guard the municipal building to prevent further looting or arson. On Friday, they climbed down a series of stairs, stepping over piles of rubbish, into the pitch-black bowels of the building. Making their way through ankle-deep water, their pen-flashlights illuminated a stash of vintage cars owned by Odai Hussein, the eldest son of Saddam Hussein. "That's the one I want," Sawyer quipped. It was a cherry red, convertible Jaguar. He guessed it was made in 1939. Splashing through the water, he found a black 1936 Rolls Royce, a 1931 Bentley, presidential Cadillacs and two 19th-century horse-drawn broughams. Against the backdrop of so much poverty in Baghdad, the secret collection of vintage cars, many in mint condition and having been driven only a few miles, was a reminder of the contrast between the way the Hussein presidential family lived and the way much of rest of the country lived. Sawyer and Vargas, both of Oceanside, had ridden into Baghdad the day the statue of Hussein was pulled down, signifying the fall of the regime on the 20th day of the war. The main problem so far has been looting. Walking past an ice cream truck inside the compound, Sawyer said it had $3.9 million in looted U.S. cash inside when it was seized. He said looted Iraqi currency from another heist filled an entire armored personnel carrier. Nonetheless, Sawyer is confident the country has a bright future. "This could be a model country," he said. "There's no reason why you should have so much poverty here. . . . We took over this country to give it back to the people." Sawyer added, "We can get this place off the ground faster because we didn't do a lot of damage." The road from the city's airport to Hussein's main Baghdad palace is littered with Iraqi vehicles destroyed by Marines as their tanks made their way up the road April 8, the day the city fell. A group of men were digging in the soft sand on Friday. The smell of rotting flesh was heavy in the air and flies swarmed around the spot where they were digging. A leg protruded from the sand. Nearby were shallow graves neatly dug and waiting for bodies. The men said they had already dug up dozens of civilian corpses. Nearby was a cluster of eight vehicles. The men said they retrieved 15 bodies from those vehicles alone, including those of women and children. The Marines, they said angrily, had destroyed vehicles driven by fleeing civilians and buried them in the sand to hide them. As is often the case with war, it was unclear what had happened. Iraqi army helmets lay near some of the wrecked vehicles. An Iraqi artillery piece also was nearby. And there had been reports of Iraqi forces in civilian clothes and vehicles on the day of the battle in similar locations. A U.S. soldier said he could not verify the claims of the Iraqi civilians digging in the palm garden. He and some other soldiers watching the digging through binoculars from behind sandbags 100 yards away had arrived only two days earlier, after the Marines had fought their way up the heavily defended road. The fury of the Iraqi men digging up and reburying the bodies reflected the lingering resentment of many in Baghdad. It was expressed elsewhere in the city by protesters demanding an end to what they called an unjust U.S. occupation. Critics say the Bush administration and U.S. military didn't do enough to stop the widespread looting and arson that erupted after coalition forces stripped away the Hussein regime. Since then, the military has increased the number of patrols it sends out looking for arsonists and looters. The patrols have begun traveling with Iraqi police in tow. Sgt. Michael Bishop, a Marine from Twentynine Palms, led one such patrol the other day. Two Humvees and a Mazda 929 carrying three Iraqi police officers pulled to a halt in front of Rafadeen Savings. A chain and lock they had placed on the door earlier in the day were gone. Inside, they found an unexploded Molotov cocktail. Bishop pulled out the stopper on the bottle and poured the gasoline on the floor. Then he smashed the bottle so it couldn't be used again. For the most part, residents greeted the patrol after the spate of looting, shooting and arson that has rocked the city. At one stop, a Marine handed out Oreos with one hand while he held his pistol in the other, his eyes constantly darting up and down the buildings on both sides of the narrow street for possible snipers. One man pleaded with him to step up the patrols. Later, the patrol pulled to a halt in front of a bank. Men standing out front scattered and the Marines gave chase. They nabbed eight people, including several who had been inside. An empty safe, its door broken open, lay in the street around the corner, a vestige of earlier looting. Five of the eight were released immediately. The Iraqi police picked out three of the men to take back to the police station for questioning. But they, too, would be free soon. There was no place to detain the looters, no judges to try them, no lawyers to defend them, no prisons to incarcerate them. For now, the new Iraq's criminal justice system, like most of its government, lies in the future.