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US struggles to stop thief-soldiers

After the war, US soldiers referred to Iraqi looters as "Ali Babas." Now, the name is more commonly used by Iraqis to describe the soldiers.

This view is spreading through the capital, propelled by word of mouth and amplified by anti-US elements ready to exploit any hint of the misbehavior of the US-led occupation force. Many Iraqis are convinced that the soldiers are here to rob them of money, jewelry and cars.

US military officials refused to discuss specific charges of theft by soldiers and disciplinary actions, but said that in most instances property believed stolen was more likely to have been confiscated during raids or at checkpoints.

That distinction matters little to Iraqis trying to recover their property.

Sergeant Thad Farlow, a civil affairs officer whose unit runs a civilian-assistance center, said the complaints he heard stemmed from a mixture of negligence and actual misconduct. "It's kind of hard to win the hearts and minds when soldiers are taking US$650 Thuraya phones," he said, referring to a type of satellite telephone.

Iraqi community leaders warn that the perception is poisoning Iraqi attitudes, buttressing a sense of powerlessness and creating opposition to the US-led occupation, even among Iraqis who welcomed the war.

But the US forces have done little to refute the rumors of theft. Nor is there a centralized system to help Iraqis recover their property or to answer Iraqi complaints.

On any given day, Iraqis can be found pleading at the gates of military bases or in civil affairs offices: an old woman who laments that her savings were taken from her son on the road to Baghdad; a young man who says he gave a Thuraya phone to a soldier for a call and did not get it back; a cigarette merchant who says he returned to a checkpoint to recover his car the day after it was confiscated, only to find that both car and checkpoint had vanished.

Part of the problem is a cultural misunderstanding. In Iraq's cash-based society, it is not unusual for people to carry stacks of dinars and a gun to protect them. But soldiers who discovered piles of cash (a million dinars equals only US$700) and an AK-47 often assumed the owner was up to no good.

Even now, some soldiers seem not to realize that many Iraqis are carrying on their business -- buying houses, selling cars and livestock -- often in cash.

"Where would an Iraqi get US$3,000?" one sergeant asked when the question of confiscation was raised. "I can't even get US$3,000."

Assad Ibrahim Mehdi, a vegetable seller, is one of the few complainants who can muster a witness. That person, a military translator, has signed an affidavit attesting that during a raid in April, soldiers took the family's savings -- about US$2,000 in dinars -- and an old tin chocolate box containing the deed to his family's house, their citizenship papers and their ration card. The soldiers left no receipt, and Mehdi considers his property stolen.

"What else would you call it?" he said on a recent day, after waiting three hours in the sun to see a soldier about his complaint.

"I don't know what they'll do to the people who've been looted who haven't got witnesses," said Elizabeth Hodgkin, a representative of Amnesty International who is helping Mehdi with his case. "I've heard many people say, `They took US$30,000, but I don't think I'll ever see it again."'

For the civil-affairs officers whose job is to take complaints and, within their limited authority, follow up, the situation is painful, so much so that one of them slipped Mehdi US$50 from his own pocket.
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