THE IRAQ LOOTING

A reader writes:

The "Looters in Iraq" issue has something of a life of it's own and facts are few and far between but this hasn't stopped all kinds of pundits from weighing in from every possible angle (including the idea that the Iraqis are just getting their own back). So maybe we can play the game and look at this "hypothetical" situation: Imagine if before the war Bush, Blair or Howard went back to their electorates (or, better still, went to the UN) and said that in addition to combat forces, they also want x thousand extra cops, jailers and peacekeeping troops to send in behind the combat forces to ensure that the iraqis don't pilfer their public hospitals, don't destroy their schools, don't loot food aid warehouses and don't smash their own museums. Can you imagine the response?

My guess is that such a request would be painted by leftists as a grossly insulting example of western arrogance and racism. Muslim and NGO spokespersons would be saying 'ordinary Iraqis are civilised and just don't behave like that'. A few ex-pat Iraqis and foreign visitors to Iraq would come on TV and tell how they left the house in Basra unlocked for years over there without being robbed. "You really want those extra troops to impose your will on a reluctant people, not to protect them".

Of course, assuming you got your peacekeepers, and once they had prevented social chaos, the same critics would use this success as evidence that your request was unwarranted and unnecessary. Am I being too cynical?

It is probably a good idea not to involve frontline troops too heavily in peacekeeping, so maybe this is why Centcom has not come down hard on Baghdad's "Ali Baba" looters as many Baghdad citizens would like.

British paratroopers in the Cold War were expected to have very short combat survival prospects when pitted against Warsaw Pact troops. So naturally their training and psychology was very aggressive as displayed in the Falklands. But putting them on the streets of Northern Ireland to deal with civil disturbances like "Bloody Sunday" probably only made a bad situation worse.. In fact the commander of the UK Paras in Northern Ireland's seems very cynical about politicians deploying combat troops to deal with civil order situations and then 'hanging them out to dry' when things go wrong.

On the other hand, history has shown, dealing sternly with looters and rioters, including the a credible threat to use deadly force, does seem to bring these situations under control quickly. But the international and domestic political consequences, especially back in the US and UK, if allied troops were to shoot rioters or looters would be enormous, even if it may just be true that most law abiding Baghdad citizens would welcome it.

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