Commander Denis Kennedy is a very polite man, at least for someone stuck in the middle of what some political observers consider is the first U.S. Army quagmire of the 21st Century. The tall, slender officer works at an office in downtown Baghdad. The Center for Humanitarian Assistance and Coordination of the U.S. Army in occupied Iraq is located at the perimeters of one of the palaces of the former iron ruler, is of difficult access, and is now occupied by the bureaucratic hordes of the Provisional Civil Authority and, perhaps more so than at the time of the tyrant, it is a veritable fortress.

Despite a Baghdad map marked with coded notations of reported armed incidents and common crimes, Commander Kennedy reiterates that there were no crime statistics to speak of in Iraq. Criminal inventory, according to the occupying forces, was not a main preoccupation of Saddam’s government, at least since 1987.

This would be tragic enough if it weren’t for one ironic fact that escapes this well intentioned Army Commander: that, at least it is fair to assume, the number of the security checkpoints scattered on the way to the main building might be inversely proportional to the contact that this bureaucracy has established with the Iraqi people they supposedly looking after.

What little criminal data was found seems as inconsistent and as unreliable as the stories about the now fugitive dictator’s mood swings. While it seems death by shooting in July 2002 amounted to no more than ten, they rose, a year later, to about 470. This disparity, the interim civilian authority proclaims, has to do with an amnesty declared by Saddam Hussein in November of last year where more than 100,000 were set free and not to a mishandling by the occupying forces.

On the other hand, Bernard Karik, a consultant with the new Iraqi police force and a former New York Police Commissioner, blames the remnants of loyal fedhayin gangs.

What remains are the daily incidents. Typically, a well-to-do family would be targeted, assessments of affluence being quite relative in post-Saddam Baghdad, then at the right moment, seize the target, usually a child. In the case of a relatively poor family, the kidnappers would remind them of a rich relative who can provide them the ransom.

Arrangements with kidnappers over a telephone line is a luxury, particularly in a city where only a few hundred lines work. Both sides quickly reach an agreement, helped by a sense of desperation pervading Iraq, where the anxiety to obtain cash from the criminal meets half way with the victim’s relative’s insolvency, and a 60,000 reward can be settled for 20,000.

If all goes well, the gang delivers the child in a crowded market, battered senseless and exhausted but alive. For these families, the reasons behind this new wave of criminality are sketchy at best. Nobody remembers the Saddam amnesty and, in fact, few remember the war.

The only thing fresh in their memory is the first day of lootings, where thousands of people roamed uncontrolled, stealing what they could from museums, shops, and government offices. And they remember something else: that the military forces of the occupying power sat idly by, letting it all happen unconcerned. The cost of such remarkable passivity was not only monetary. With it, the occupying army also let go of all their prestige as conquering heroes.