Iraqi National Library Saved

[rah]

Yeah, there was no looting in NY when the power went out.
Yeah, there was no looting in (place city name here) when their (insert sport's team name) won the championship.
These types of incidents are known to be breeding grounds for looting and general mayhem but it happens regardless of how much the local police prepare for it.
SO even knowing is obviously no guarentee that it can be prevented.

[PLATO]

Looting in NY?? GePap, please explain why you and your fellow citizens did not have your government better prepared to handle this! You definately should have lobbied your city council for far more police officers to be able to handle this crisis. You simply must not care about all the valuable things that were destroyed! I bet you even voted for George Bush!!!!

[gsmoove23]

uh, if there was looting it didn't last for a week and devastate almost the enitire infrastructure of the city. Police usually work very well in containing such things to neighborhoods that we can afford to have beaten up a bit.

[rah]

Yes but they're working from a base of order.
Not a base of total chaos. TWO totally different things.

[DanS]

devastate almost the enitire infrastructure of the city

Tsk tsk. Hardly any of the infrastructure of Baghdad was destroyed.

[PLATO]

"Neighborhoods that we can afford to have beaten up a bit" ?? Hmm...This sounds like a value judgement. It also sounds like in situations like these that a value judgement must be made. I contend that the US made value judgements and were right to do so.

"Devastate almost the entire infrastructure of the city" ?? Where did this come from? It is my understanding that most of the city wasn't even touched.

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by GePap
Hmm, the germans took Yugoslavia in 3 days with 78 killed, and as far as I know, there was very little looting.

How many embedded reporters were with the Germans in Yugoslavia? In Iraq you have the situation where there are literally hundreds of reporters looking for a story to tell. Many work for questionable news agencies that are looking for a certain spin on the events. With so many reporters and so little actual news, you get what we witnesses in Iraq: exageration to demonstrate a point. A dozen or so looters is suddenly "a wave of rampant looting". A home invasion becomes "lawlessness extends to people's home". A couple dozen Iraqis yelling in the street is "hordes of protestors". A few artifacts gone is "the museum was wiped out by looters". Reports are due in, big headlines sell papers or increase ratings, facts are secondary. Classic yellow journalism.

Bghdad, and yes, if 44,000 Cops can keep new York safe, 50,000 soldiers should be able to at least secure the more important public sites in that city.

You're kidding, right? First off, New York isn't a war zone. Secondly, soldiers are not police. Third, the cops are already spread throughout New York, not approaching in masse from the south. Fourth, the cops in New York are familiar with the neighborhoods they patrol. Nope, I'd have to say there's very little in common with the two situations.

The "not enough troops" arguement predates the war.

Of course. There are always second guessers and Monday morning quarterbacks. No matter what the number of troops, there's always somehow who will claim it's not enough.

[gsmoove23]

Iraqi buildings that have been looted, burned, and destroyed: the Ministry of Planning, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Irrigation, the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Information, the Baghdad Archaeological Museum, the museum in the northern city of Mosul, and three hospitals.

Sorry, I meant entire infrastructure of the country. Hyperbole yes. Another target of looting has been electrical equipment, water treatment equipment, basically anything that can be carried away. Engineers and such trying to bring back water and electricity still can't go out unescorted for fear their equipment will be stolen. I was listening to an electrical engineer on NPR who talked about coming to work one day and catching a group of people in the process of stealing a large generator. That was recently.

[SlowwHand]

Keeping the domestic peace is not the first priority.

Let's not forget that Baghdad had, and has, regular public servants.
Troops weren't detaining them from doing their job.

[Edan]

One thing I read a few days agowas that a large number of old books (dating as far back as the 16th century) were found in the basement of the Iraqi intelligence services. Many of them were underwater and were beiing slowly and carefully recovered to prevent further damage (although aparently the ones in the article hadn't been heavily damaged and were quite readable). Also, they were found next to an unexploded bomb(!).

Some things turn out right.

[TCO]

Re: Iraqi National Library Saved

Originally posted by DanS
Just like the stories of the looting at the National Museum were extremely overblown, so too is the torching of the National Library. As you will recall, the library contained priceless early copies of the Koran, one-of-a-kind copies of newspapers, etc.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/13..._hidden+.shtml

It must be a lie. We know that the only Iraqis to rejoice in liberation were evil looters.

[Ned]

Who's to blame here. Garner? Franks. The Lt. Gen, I don't recall his name, in charge of ground opps in Iraq?

It looks like Garner is taking the fall.

[GePap]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by rah
Yes but they're working from a base of order.
Not a base of total chaos. TWO totally different things. [/QUOTE

]Never have Museums or important government buildings being looted in NYC; so even if the poor neighboorhoods go, as gsmoove said, not the sorts of things we are talking about.

And as for the Chaos: did we not KNOW beforehand that once the security apparatus collapsed there might be chaos? This is not totally unforseen, or certainly should not have been (hell, it seems the Iraqis knew what might be coming when they decided to hide stuff), given history. We knew going into this war we would have to replace the lcal law enforcement, who, after all, were part of the state apparatus we were there to destroy. To continue the annalogy: if the power went out, you bet the NYC police would be out ready for chaos, not expecting just another day.

And on this "war zone" business: first, gsmoove's initial point about one building secured, another down the street not has never been addressed, second, if it was so utterly dangerous that troops could not even secure a FEW KEY SITES (not the whole city, just 1 dozen buildings), then what the hell were 3 tanks and some other building doing securing a square on the 9th so a nice photoop of the Saddam building going down could be held? Could not those forces have been better spent, say, securing the finace minsitry and payroll files?

Let's not forget that Baghdad had, and has, regular public servants.
Troops weren't detaining them from doing their job.

Given that the police were part of the state apparatus, paychecks would stop going out once the mail service ended, plus the paymasters and all the bosses left town, and given that simply to secure themselves the us forces would have to set up checkpoints around the city, going to work would be rahter difficult for most public owrkers, specially the police.

That is the basic probem: 2 divisions certainly are not enough to secure the entire city, but we are not talking the entire city, we are talking about 1-2 DOZEN sites, most of them probalby centrally located within the city and not spread out.

The US military is adverse to ploicing and nation building, has been for years, and yet this is the tool we want to keep using to remake the world?

[SlowwHand]

That's just tough if it was difficult, GePap.
Why is that solely OUR problem ?

The troops were prioritizing their own activity, and did so correctly.

[PLATO]

1-2 dozen sites?? Baghdad probably has 10 times that number of strategic intersections that had to be secured. Plus, who says that we didn't secure a dozen critical sites? Just because we did not get them all is not a lack of planning. IIRC, there are still snipers to worry about and we are still looking for regime leaders that could cause problems. There is still a ton of things to be done before we can begin to call the place secue. Sure, more troops would have helped, but only marginally IMHO.