In Baghdad streets, little sign of rule of law

Baghdad, Jul 12: Private Uday Abdullah is one of 50,000 Iraqi troops and police sent on to Baghdad's streets last month to make the city safe, but he does not see the point.

Lounging in the shade to escape the midday heat yesterday, the soldier said it is gunmen from rival Shi'ite and Sunni parties with clout in the government who rule the streets.

''We arrest lots of gunmen and they just walk free the next day. They're always from the Mehdi Army or the Badr Brigade or the Islamic Party. So what's the point of our job?'' he said.

Many in Baghdad wonder the same thing as checkpoints set up as part of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's crackdown on violence spawn ever greater traffic jams but have failed to prevent dozens dying in sectarian shootings and bombings this week.

''We do nothing but create huge traffic jams with these checkpoints,'' Abdullah said.

Pointing to the traffic backed up on Senak Bridge, a major artery over the Tigris river, he said: ''I am standing here. But I have no desire to be here.'' Raed Abd al-Hafudh Saleem, a lieutenant in Baghdad's traffic department, is equally bemused and cynical.

From his concrete booth in the middle of a busy intersection in upmarket Mansour, he has a clear view of the many vehicles carrying heavily armed men that speed past every day.

''I don't know who these people are. I can't stop them because they never hesitate to point their guns at me.'' Every morning, when he reports for duty at his little booth, he finds fresh bullet casings littering the road.

''I don't know where they come from. Everyone carries a gun in this country, from the bodyguards of officials and members of parliament to private security companies.

''How can I distinguish between all those and the insurgents, and militias?'' he said.

He told how bodyguards recently fired into the air to clear the road for a ministerial convoy. When he remonstrated with them, one man fired a burst from his AK-47 just past his head.

''He said to me: 'Who are you to say this? I am the state."

REUTERS