Volume 50, Number 8 · May 15, 2003
The Fall of Baghdad
By Tim Judah
On the morning of April 10, the day after resistance collapsed in most of Baghdad, I talked to a small group of looters at a warehouse belonging to the Ministry of Finance who were carting off brand-new water coolers and air-conditioning units. Except when they scuffled with one another, they were friendly and unapologetic. A young man named Habib, who had two water coolers strapped to the top of a taxi, said, 'Now we have freedom, this is our right. We've earned these things and we're poor.' Sitting on top of an air-conditioning unit he had just taken, another man called Sami said, 'I was in the army for eleven years and I don't have an air conditioner. I have four children.'
Feature, 5358 words
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