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http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/126/nation/Without_laws_guns_are_order_of_day+.shtml
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/126/nation/Without_laws_guns_are_order_of_day+.shtml
Without laws, guns are order of day
Stolen weapons flood Iraqi market
By Elizabeth Neuffer, Globe Staff, 5/6/2003
BAGHDAD - Gun merchant Odai al-Rubbai would like to thank the US-led coalition - not for Iraq's liberation from Saddam Hussein, but for the maelstrom of civil disorder that followed.
''Business is booming!'' said Rubbai, 32, who does brisk business selling stolen weapons to a panicked citizenry in the capital city. ''It is the law of the jungle out there now.''
Guns, whether AK-47s nabbed from looted armories or Berettas heisted from private collections, have flooded Iraq in recent weeks, stolen by thieves, resold to gun dealers, and then purchased by anxious families seeking a way to protect themselves.
The weapons provide a measure of security in a land where thieves and looters still stalk the streets. But the flood of unlicensed guns has also created problems for US forces and Iraq's newly emerging local authorities as they seek to reestablish order.
Almost every night, gunfire breaks the silence in neighborhoods throughout Baghdad. Sometimes the shots are celebratory, but often they are deadly. Armed thieves terrorize women without husbands or sons to protect them. Shopkeepers have not yet unshuttered their stores, fearful their goods will be stolen.
The thefts of weapons also mean that Baghdad's criminal underworld is better armed than the city's police force.
''The biggest problem facing Baghdad is security,'' said Baghdad's new police chief, Zubair al-Nuaimy, who recounted how two officers were killed and two others injured in a recent shoot-out with gun thieves. ''Our policemen now only carry a pistol. I'd like them to have machine guns.''
Toting a weapon is not unusual in Iraq, particularly in the countryside, where farmers often pack a Kalashnikov assault rifle along with their hoe. But under Hussein, guns were strictly regulated by the Ministry of Interior, and only people with licenses could carry one.
Now, as one dealer noted wryly, ''the Ministry of Interior no longer exists.'' There are thousands of guns available, because of the regime's decision to hide caches of weapons in civilian areas so that residents could fight the incoming US troops. Instead, looters ripped open the boxes of weapons after the troops arrived, flooding the gun market.
Fleeing Iraqi soldiers also added to the mix. Dealers say some troops were so desperate that they traded their weapons for civilian clothes.
In the narrow streets of Baghdad's black market, Kalashnikovs, the most readily available gun and the weapon of choice, sell for about $50. Beretta pistols cost $200. But nearly every kind of weapon and ammunition is for sale, from bullets to rocket-propelled grenades to bazookas to machine guns.
Although guns for sale are not openly displayed, knock on the door of a CD store, or drop a word to a youth lingering on the street, and dealers are happy to show their wares.
Nearly everyone is a salesman: 6-year-old children display boxes of bullets, while their fathers - nearly all former criminals released from prison this year by Hussein - show off their guns.
And nearly everyone in Baghdad wants a gun. About 10 percent of those buying them in this conservative society are women, including Enaam al-Samaraee.
''We need something to protect ourselves,'' said the 52-year-old housewife, sipping coffee in her living room where two Kalashnikovs were balanced against a carved wooden chair atop a blue Oriental rug. ''Maybe even one shot in the air is enough.''
Even the Hawza Shi'ite religious school has exempted guns from its list of looted or stolen goods that followers should return to authorities, in case families needed the weapons for self-protection. But they have instructed families to limit themselves to one gun and to be prepared to return it when law and order returns.
The abundance of weapons on the streets tops everybody's list of complaints, and is often the first topic at any gathering. To many Iraqis, their presence is a sign that American ''colonialism'' has plunged Iraq into a kind of dark ages, where freedom may have been gained but civilization lost.
''You can't see an Iraqi family without a gun,'' said Hasim al-Nassiny, the director general of preventive medicine at the Ministry of Health. ''Even 10-year-old children have guns.''
Yet others see in the weapons a kind of Wild West independence, an insurance policy against the US presence if things go wrong. ''If the Americans stay longer than we want, we will organize to throw them out and use our guns to do it,'' said gun merchant Jabbir al-Mohammedawi, 53.
US forces have been seizing illegal weapons where they can, although they say their 12,000 troops here are too few to police a city of 5 million residents. An additional 4,000 military police and infantry are expected to arrive over the next two weeks.
US troops have detained 5,000 people, mostly for looting. The reconstituted Iraqi police force has arrested about 1,000, an improvement considering that under Hussein, local police had little power because they were outranked by secret police.
Nuaimy, the police chief, is trying to come up with creative ways to persuade his city's residents to surrender their weapons. He plans to issue a call, broadcast on the radio as well as by religious leaders, for guns to be returned.
But he said the way to appeal to the gun merchants is money.
''I think we should buy them all back,'' he said. ''But we are unable to do this, so maybe we should wait for the allies to help us, or wait until a new government here is elected.''
But Rubbai, the gun dealer, laughs at the idea. The illegal gun trade will stay until Iraq's political future is clearer, he said. ''In these times, I don't believe people will ever deliver guns up,'' he said. ''And if they do, they will just hand over a few - and keep the rest.''
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 5/6/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
