The big guns over Basra have at last fallen silent. For almost three weeks now every night has been punctuated by the deafening crack of British shells over the city. But on Sunday night not a single volley was fired.
Yesterday the people of Basra woke up and discovered why. Saddam’s rule is over in the city. The British have finally come.
But if the big guns are quiet, the small ones are not. The battle for Basra may be won, but chaos was the main victor as thousands of people tasted sudden freedom. The rattle of gunfire echoed through the city’s streets as looters ransacked official buildings and helped themselves to whatever they could find.
British soldiers, still battling a few diehard militia, could do little but watch.
It led to surreal scenes. At a further education college just a few hundreds yards from the old city and the now ruined Ba’ath party headquarters I met William. Of course, that is not his real name. Fear of Saddam has still not dissipated entirely. Real names are still dangerous. They could kill you if Saddam returned like he did in 1991.
William is a former English student at the college and chose his all too English nickname after studying Shakespeare. He was dragging a metal handcart behind him and was keen to get his share of the loot at his alma mater. ”I need air conditioning units,” he said. ”It gets very hot and we do not have any in the people’s houses.”
Ahead of him streams of people were running into the college, leaping the metal fences surrounding it.
They returned laden with all manner of objects: furniture, ceiling fans, electric lights and even floorboards. Somewhere a fire had started and smoke billowed through the roof.
But William – while keeping an eye on the progress of the looters – was happy to talk for a few minutes.
”Looting is bad, but I am going to get some. We have had nothing for so long that now we have to take what we can,” he said.
Suddenly the crack of incoming machine gun fire tore through the air. As journalists and British troops ducked for cover and scrambled behind cars, William remained calm. He looked briefly around him and then crouched down on the pavement. He put his fingers in his ears through the gunfire around him and continued the interview.
”Don’t worry. It is just militiamen and you British will soon kill them all,” he said with a large grin.
William was nothing if not phlegmatic under fire. That is no surprise. He was conscripted into the Iraqi army as a sergeant. He has seen his fair share of violence. But he deserted two months ago after hearing President George Bush speak on the radio.
”I knew there was going to be a war when I heard him and I knew who was going to win. I just left,” he said and flashed his grin again.
William is now a happy man. Along with thousands of others he waved and gave the thumbs-up sign to every British tank and armoured vehicle that trundled by. It was not the singing and dancing in the streets dreamed of by Whitehall spin doctors, but it was a heartening thing for the British to see.
People were happy that it was over. You could tell it in the smiling face of a young boy, almost bent double as he hauled a refrigerator down the road in the direction of a waiting donkey cart.
But William did not want the world to misunderstand the looting. The people of southern Iraq have suffered much over the past 20 years. This was their time to get some of their own back.
”Please do not judge us,” he said, for a moment serious. ”The people here have had nothing so long. Do not condemn us for this. Do not misunderstand what we mean by this.”
Another rattle of machine gun fire cut the air and William became concerned that it might be British troops firing over people’s heads to ward off the looting thousands. He needed his share before the situation changed. He was off, dragging his cart behind him with a gaggle of friends trailing in his wake. ”I am very happy,” he said as a parting shot. ”I wish we could fight alongside the British and Americans. Saddam Hussein is vanished. He was our nightmare and he is gone.”
Saddam is indeed gone from Basra. But the city is far from safe. In the grounds of a building next door to the college, the corpse of a militiaman lay face down in the dust. It was impossible to say if he had been shot by British troops or as revenge by local people. Certainly, military intelligence reports have suggested that reprisals against those linked to the former regime have already begun.
The machinery and damage wreaked by nearly three weeks of war is littered all around. Though the main roads into Basra are now experiencing their first ”rush hour” since the war began, the heavy traffic trundles through a landscape of burning buildings, burnt-out tanks and bullet-scarred walls.
One warehouse, which had been a Fedayeen stronghold until a few days ago, bore huge holes in its roof where British shells had punched through. It is a bizarre mix of the normal and the war-torn, as pickups laden with tomatoes for Basra’s souks pass by Challenger tanks, their gun barrels scanning the horizons for hostile intent. Huge jams have sprung up on main roads as ordinary traffic builds up behind the invading battle groups of the British army.
The people here have suffered much in the weeks of waiting for the British advance.
The militia, fiercely loyal to Saddam’s dying regime, have kept a terrible grip on this place. The city has suffered too from the British shelling and night-time tank raids. Given the scale of the damage, scores of civilians must have died despite all efforts to minimalise civilian casualties.
Faisal Al Sehmaneid, a local headmaster, was desperate to get news out to his two brothers who live in Chicago.
”Please call them; here is the number,” he said, thrusting a note into the hands of a journalist ”Just tell them that we are all safe, we are all good.”
He speaks little English and puffed out his cheeks in a huge sigh of relief that the ”siege” is at an end. ”It is a good day, a good day,” he said.
But Basra is far from a safe city . At a British checkpoint, journalists crowded around an officer asking for a safe place to park their vehicles for a few minutes away from the eyes of looters.
”You can’t come in here. They are firing stuff in at us all the time,” the officer barked in a clipped public school accent. As if on cue the sharp crack of an AK-47 round fizzed overhead.
It was time to leave Basra. Freedom has come to the city and its people are drinking deeply of it. But as the looting spread it was clear that you can have too much of a good thing. – Guardian Unlimited Â