A town without law, much less order (Baqouba, Diyala province, Iraq)

[Barrett808]

A town without law, much less order
By Iason Athanasiadis

BAQOUBA, Iraq - It was 9 o'clock on a balmy spring evening when an informant called an intelligence tip in to the Joint Coordination and Control (JCC) office at the US outpost in central Baqouba. He had information of an imminent terrorist attack: a silver Korean minibus operated by insurgents would be exploded the next day inside the town.

It was the kind of news that should cause at least a flurry of activity. But in a country where jaded local and American law-enforcement officers watch car bombs going off daily, the
information was merely radioed in to headquarters and presumably forgotten about. By the end of the next day, the minibus had yet to explode. Perhaps the tip-off was misinformation, perhaps the threat was neutralized. But the small victory was lost amid the flood of terrorist activity coursing across the troubled province of Diyala throughout the day.

"Right now, it's chaos," said Dr Thaer Kudier, one of the locals working as an interpreter and problem-solver for the Americans in Baqouba. "There's no law, there are no restraints. So there's raping, stealing, killings, carjackings. They are exploiting the circumstances for revenge."

...

"The defense and military institutions have been so successfully penetrated that whenever the Americans decide to mount an operation, news reaches the people cooperating with the insurgents and they take precautions," said an Iraqi translator at Camp Warhorse who called himself "George".

"We've now got a second power running things here, alongside the existing government."

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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HD12Ak01.html