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Looting in Baghdad

Aired April 11, 2003 - 15:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Christiane Amanpour is in Baghdad as well. She's covering all these historic developments for us. She is joining us now live -- Christiane.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, certainly there will need to be a lot more forces on the ground. The military admitting that they simply don't have the manpower right now to finish the war and as well, police in the security vacuum that has been created certainly in Baghdad for at least the last three days since the regime collapsed and essentially since all vestiges of civil administration have collapsed.

A Marine spokesman told me earlier this evening that now they're going to try desperately to get, for instance, the police, the fire brigades, all sorts of elements of civil administration back to work if they can, but at the moment, the looting continues and it really is quite a free-for-all for anyone who's out and about.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): U.S. Marines patrol some of the city streets. They are greeted as liberators, especially by those who themselves are liberating anything they can get their hands on. From government buildings to private businesses and homes. It is an extraordinary sight. Instead of trying to stop it, the new force in town waves to the Iraqis who cheerfully trundle by with all their booty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much!

AMANPOUR: One of today's rich targets, the Al Rasheed Hotel, long the refuge of international journalists and dignitaries visiting Baghdad during Saddam's iron fist rule. Today it is stripped bare. TV sets walk out the front door. Hotel room minibars ripped from the walls, and even tennis rackets. Does their new owner really have a game of doubles planned? What is going on here? A rare answer from one of the looters.

"We are Iraqis but we have never shared in our country's resources. We watched for so many years as the government and rich men ate and slept while we went hungry."

Outside, it is the wild West. Store owners taking the law into their own hands. And at the mosques on this first Friday prayer since the liberation of Baghdad, not politics, but urgent appeals to stop the looting. "Do you know what you're stealing," asked Sheikh Mohammed (ph)? "You must defend your neighbor's home as your own. We must all help each other."

Women rock with tears and fear about first the bomb damage and now the threat to their lives and meager livelihood.

The woes of a city welder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have many tools in the shop. I am afraid maybe today, maybe tomorrow that this broken the door and stole all my tools.

AMANPOUR: Another blames Saddam Hussein for unleashing this orgy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He steal the money of the Iraqi people, the resources of the Iraqi people. He is a killer. He is a dictator.

AMANPOUR: The dictator may be gone, but at another mosque across town, Mohammed al Baca (ph), the imam there, has this warning for the new powers that be.

"Under cover of removing Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction," he says, "The American and British have come to our country with what objective, to liberate us? What liberation is this? What kind of freedom have they brought us?"

They may have been freed from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, but the people say that unless order is restored quickly, they are not yet enjoying freedom from fear itself.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now one of the most disturbing elements of looting has been at the city hospitals, and certainly Marines today have taken guard outside one of the last remaining hospitals in which there are people who are wounded. In fact, in many of the hospitals there has been so much looting that the medical staff hasn't even been able to come to work, and a lot of the equipment and treatment that they had, the bare essentials that they had has now been removed. There have been looting, as I say according to the Red Cross, at almost all the city hospitals.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is now not operating any more at all. It's looted, and al Kinde (ph) is looted completely, and not one patient can be taken care of in that place. We are very concerned what has happened to the hundreds of casualties who have been operated on and who are still in need of treatment. They have walked home with their open wounds, literally.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So the ICRC from its headquarters in Geneva has issued an urgent appeal to U.S. and other forces now in control of Iraq saying that humanitarian law requires occupying powers to respond. Of course, the U.S. has said that it doesn't have enough and that their lines are stretched thin. We've heard that also from the Marines, but certainly this is something that the people here in these cities now, and particularly the capital, are looking for help from those people who are now in control, which are the new U.S. forces here -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Christiane Amanpour, reporting the latest developments, very comprehensively, from Baghdad.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired April 11, 2003 - 15:02   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Christiane Amanpour is in Baghdad as well. She's covering all these historic developments for us. She is joining us now live -- Christiane.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, certainly there will need to be a lot more forces on the ground. The military admitting that they simply don't have the manpower right now to finish the war and as well, police in the security vacuum that has been created certainly in Baghdad for at least the last three days since the regime collapsed and essentially since all vestiges of civil administration have collapsed.

A Marine spokesman told me earlier this evening that now they're going to try desperately to get, for instance, the police, the fire brigades, all sorts of elements of civil administration back to work if they can, but at the moment, the looting continues and it really is quite a free-for-all for anyone who's out and about.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): U.S. Marines patrol some of the city streets. They are greeted as liberators, especially by those who themselves are liberating anything they can get their hands on. From government buildings to private businesses and homes. It is an extraordinary sight. Instead of trying to stop it, the new force in town waves to the Iraqis who cheerfully trundle by with all their booty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much!

AMANPOUR: One of today's rich targets, the Al Rasheed Hotel, long the refuge of international journalists and dignitaries visiting Baghdad during Saddam's iron fist rule. Today it is stripped bare. TV sets walk out the front door. Hotel room minibars ripped from the walls, and even tennis rackets. Does their new owner really have a game of doubles planned? What is going on here? A rare answer from one of the looters.

"We are Iraqis but we have never shared in our country's resources. We watched for so many years as the government and rich men ate and slept while we went hungry."

Outside, it is the wild West. Store owners taking the law into their own hands. And at the mosques on this first Friday prayer since the liberation of Baghdad, not politics, but urgent appeals to stop the looting. "Do you know what you're stealing," asked Sheikh Mohammed (ph)? "You must defend your neighbor's home as your own. We must all help each other."

Women rock with tears and fear about first the bomb damage and now the threat to their lives and meager livelihood.

The woes of a city welder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have many tools in the shop. I am afraid maybe today, maybe tomorrow that this broken the door and stole all my tools.

AMANPOUR: Another blames Saddam Hussein for unleashing this orgy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He steal the money of the Iraqi people, the resources of the Iraqi people. He is a killer. He is a dictator.

AMANPOUR: The dictator may be gone, but at another mosque across town, Mohammed al Baca (ph), the imam there, has this warning for the new powers that be.

"Under cover of removing Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction," he says, "The American and British have come to our country with what objective, to liberate us? What liberation is this? What kind of freedom have they brought us?"

They may have been freed from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, but the people say that unless order is restored quickly, they are not yet enjoying freedom from fear itself.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now one of the most disturbing elements of looting has been at the city hospitals, and certainly Marines today have taken guard outside one of the last remaining hospitals in which there are people who are wounded. In fact, in many of the hospitals there has been so much looting that the medical staff hasn't even been able to come to work, and a lot of the equipment and treatment that they had, the bare essentials that they had has now been removed. There have been looting, as I say according to the Red Cross, at almost all the city hospitals.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is now not operating any more at all. It's looted, and al Kinde (ph) is looted completely, and not one patient can be taken care of in that place. We are very concerned what has happened to the hundreds of casualties who have been operated on and who are still in need of treatment. They have walked home with their open wounds, literally.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So the ICRC from its headquarters in Geneva has issued an urgent appeal to U.S. and other forces now in control of Iraq saying that humanitarian law requires occupying powers to respond. Of course, the U.S. has said that it doesn't have enough and that their lines are stretched thin. We've heard that also from the Marines, but certainly this is something that the people here in these cities now, and particularly the capital, are looking for help from those people who are now in control, which are the new U.S. forces here -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Christiane Amanpour, reporting the latest developments, very comprehensively, from Baghdad.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com