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Crime spree
By: Seb Walker
Published date: 4/8/2003
According to officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority, rates of violent crime in Baghdad are decreasing considerably.
"The level of non-terrorist crime in Baghdad is now no worse than that of any major US city,” said Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the head of coalition forces and the man responsible for the levels of security in this troubled city, in a recent press briefing.
The view is not uncommon within the coalition administration.
“If you talk to ordinary Iraqis they will tell you that this is the case,” said Charles Heatley, the chief media officer of the CPA. “It is impossible to give statistics or figures, so no scientific evaluation can be done. But it is clear that general levels of crime are dropping significantly.”
A more worrying picture emerges from a visit to the Baghdad morgue in Medical City. All victims of suspicious or violent death are supposed to be referred here by the hospitals so that an autopsy can be carried out through forensic examination. The figures are not entirely representative because, in some cases, families simply bury their dead without going to the authorities.
“We used to receive about 300-350 cases per month – an average of 10 a day,” said Faik Amin Baker, director of the Medical Legal Institute in Medical City, which oversees the running of the morgue. “The figures now are more than triple that. We sometimes get 40 to 45 cases in one day.”
Baker estimates that around 80 to 90 percent of these are due to firearms injuries. He acknowledges that the police are beginning to establish themselves, but fears that they still face real difficulties.
“Numbers of victims are still increasing even though the level of police organization has improved,” Baker said –– and this continued high level of violent crime is creating logistical difficulties.
“We have 12 coldboxes which can each contain 6 bodies. These are now getting overcrowded.”
The morgue used to keep unclaimed bodies for a minimum of 12 months, now they have obtained a court order allowing them to get rid of them within 2-3 weeks in order to free up space.
“Security now does not exist at nights,” said Baker. “It is not safe to go out after 9 pm. The biggest cause of all this is the increase in numbers of guns.”
The coalition has tried to crack down on the numbers of weapons on the street by vigorously pursuing violations of the gun order. Under this order, nobody is allowed to have more than one unlicensed weapon in their home, and guns can only be carried on the street by those authorized to do so.
But confiscation of weapons during police raids is only scratching the surface of the problem in this highly militarized society. In an average 24-hour period, coalition and Iraqi forces confiscated around 30 AK-47 rifles throughout the whole of Iraq, according to the CPA. Guns are also readily available for purchase on the blackmarket – at very affordable prices.
“Under the ex-regime, we used to keep two guns in our home for reasons of self-defense –– now we have four,” said Esa Hadi Mohamed, a 33-year-old Baghdad resident.
It is certainly true that statistics on violent crime are hard to come by in post-Saddam Iraq. Any assessment of the security situation relies on fragmented evidence gathered together to give an insight to the overall picture.
During the postwar chaos, many official records were lost or stolen. Those which survived are often unreliable since record-takers in sectors associated with the effects of violent crime have had higher priorities recently than keeping up with paperwork.
Progress has been noticeable in some areas, like the reorganization of the Iraqi police force to get officers back on the streets.
General Hassan Ali, head of police for Baghdad, maintains that the city is getting safer with each passing day
“Cooperation with US troops has given us the resources we needed, and people are already out on the streets in the evenings,” he said. “The return of reliable electricity at night will also help to improve matters.”
Ali is convinced his men can cope with the equipment they have at their disposal.
“They have enough guns to do their duties,” he said. “There is a continuous supply from the coalition forces.”
There is a new police recruitment drive starting August 15 in Baghdad, Basra and the north. Basic salaries for policemen have been doubled to $120 per month, and plainclothes officers are now working in the city –– especially around the markets. The CPA has even set up a hotline for tip-offs on criminals that is being used with increasing frequency.
Baghdad Police Col. Najeeb Al-Abdeli is in charge of the Adamiyah police district, which incorporates seven police stations. His assessment agrees broadly with the views of his boss, but he has a different perspective of the situation on the ground.
“Crime has now become common, although things have improved since police stations resumed operations,” said Al-Abdeli. “But we would feel much safer if we had ammunition for our guns.”
The Ministry of the Interior has just submitted a budget in excess of $100 million intended to cover things like uniforms, weapons, and other necessities. But for the moment, Al-Abdeli's biggest problem is the lack of resources.
“We need cars, weapons and other equipment like communication sets,” Al-Abdeli said.
On an average day, the officers at his station are called out about 13 times, and they make around four arrests. They have also confiscated approximately 50 firearms since returning to duty. But it is hard to measure the impact of the efforts of the Iraqi police in combating violent crime without seeing documented records, access to which is currently denied to members of the press.
Some figures are available from the medical sector. The casualty records of Baghdad Hospital show little improvement in the numbers of in-patients with gunshot injuries since April 9. The entries for April are sketchy, presumably due to the sheer volume of incidents in the few weeks immediately after the war. But in the month of May there were 146 cases, June has only 95 –– although there is a gap of 11 days in the entries for this month –– and in July there were more than 150 through July 27.
No statistics were available from Al-Kindi Hospital –– an institution very much at the front line from covering a large area of the city –– but one of the doctors in the emergency department was willing to offer his assessment. Saad Saladdin has been working here for 2 years and has seen no drop in the significantly increased number of cases.
“Most of the cases we get are from gunshot injuries,” he said. “The other night we received six such cases within a time period of just two and a half hours –– all of which turned fatal.”
Apart from the shortages his hospital has to face (he had been working for the last 10 days straight), Saladdin identifies a general lack of security as the major problem.
“We need to take away people's guns and get more police out there.” Saladdin said.
In the absence of reliable statistics for violent crime in Baghdad, people have to rely on hearsay and their own judgement when assessing whether it is safe to go out on the streets. It seems that almost everyone knows someone who has been a victim of violent crime since the end of the war. So whatever the truth might be about levels of these crimes in Baghdad, people are still living in fear for their safety.
“I hear of many violent crimes happening across Baghdad,” said Mohamed. “I keep to my district at night, and the women in my neighborhood often do not go out of their houses.”
“My older sister has given up her job and stays at home because of the dangers,” said Hala Ahmed, a 22-year-old student. “My family are still barricading ourselves in at night.”
It is hard to get a rounded picture on whether crime in Baghdad is better or worse than in any major US city. However, at the current rate which Baghdad morgue is receiving victims of fatal gunshot wounds, there would be an annual figure of around 9,000 deaths caused by such injuries.
Even if half of these cases were caused by terrorist attacks, rather than through regular crime (which seems unlikely given that attacks have been mostly directed at US personnel), this would still mean that numbers per year of such crimes in Baghdad would be over six times higher than for New York, and almost 20 times as high as Washington DC.
Published date: 4/8/2003
Author: Seb Walker
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