- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Looters
descended on the homes of Saddam Hussein's inner circle in Baghdad Thursday,
taking everything from chandeliers to electrical wiring but spurning the
collected works of Saddam himself.
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- Looters, many armed, roamed the streets of the capital,
ransacking offices and breaking into the houses of Saddam's feared cousin,
Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali, and Izzat Ibrahim, Saddam's
right-hand man.
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- The whereabouts of Saddam, his two sons and associates,
all of whom vanished before U.S. tanks rolled into central Baghdad Wednesday,
remains a mystery.
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- The crowd carted off wine, whiskey, guns and paintings
of half-naked women from the luxury home of Uday, Saddam's playboy elder
son.
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- Reuters cameraman Khdayer Majid filmed the looters stripping
Uday's yacht, moored in a private marina on the grounds of the house. They
also led away some of his white Arabian horses.
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- "You could find the seven wonders of the world in
there because Uday thought he was God," said Majid, who personally
knew Uday when Saddam's son ran Iraq's Olympic Committee.
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- A few days ago, Iraqis were too scared even to look at
the house by the Tigris river due to Uday's reputation for cruelty.
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- Looters drove tractors, pick-up trucks and trailers --
and even a large bus -- up to a large villa belonging to Tareq Aziz, Saddam's
deputy prime minister.
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- They stole everything from paintings to curtains, and
stripped the electrical wires from the villa's main switchboard.
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- MAFIA NOVELS
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- Aziz's library was also ransacked. Among the volumes
left behind were a book by former U.S. President Richard Nixon, the Mafia
novels of Mario Puzo, author of "The Godfather," and the complete
works of Saddam in Arabic.
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- Many of the looters were from the Saddam City area, home
to about two million impoverished Shi'ite Muslims.
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- Asked why he was robbing Aziz's house, one man wordlessly
pointed to his open mouth to indicate he was hungry.
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- Despite their boldness, many looters anxiously asked
whether there was still any threat from Saddam and his aides.
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- "Is Saddam dead or alive? That guy has seven lives,"
one said. "We are still a bit afraid. I won't really believe he is
dead until I see his body."
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- In southern Baghdad, a man who said he was a poet and
gave his name as Abu Eyaih, carried off two walking sticks from the house
of "Chemical Ali," Saddam's cousin who earned his nickname for
overseeing the use of poison gas against Kurds in 1988.
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- He said he was taking the sticks as a gesture of contempt
toward the owner, who sometimes walked with the aid of a stick.
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- "I'm not here to loot the house of this criminal
Ali Hassan al-Majid. I took these two things as a symbol to humiliate him,"
he said.
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- "I am feeling sad that some Iraqis are looting furniture
and equipment of public buildings. They don't belong to Saddam, they are
the property of the Iraqi people. We should keep them where they are for
the new government to use when it assumes power."
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- MINISTRIES, HOSPITALS
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- Elsewhere in Baghdad, the Ministry of Trade was set ablaze
by looters.
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- A nearby Interior Ministry building housing an office
for identity cards was also in flames as people carted off furniture and
computers.
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- Several diplomatic buildings were burglarized including
the German Embassy, the French cultural center and the house of the Finnish
ambassador -- where one looter staggered out carrying an air-conditioning
unit.
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- The International Committee of the Red Cross said it
was concerned about the looting of hospitals.
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- "The hospitals themselves have come under attack
for the purpose of looting. There are lots of people carrying weapons around
and they make it very difficult for civilians in need of medical care to
actually reach the hospitals," ICRC spokesman Roland Huguenin-Benjamin
said.
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