Crime wave hits Iraqi capital

[Nambe]

By Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Baghdad is at the height of a summer that is long, hot — and violent. As police return to the war-shattered streets to try to restore order, they are finding themselves in the middle of an unprecedented crime wave.

While the state-sponsored violence of Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, so is the iron fist of the police state it used to keep Iraqis in check. Police have no crime statistics yet, but Baghdad's morgue handled 47 times as many gunshot deaths in July as in the same month a year ago.

Officials attribute the violence to a variety of causes: looting and robbery; the settling of scores from the Saddam era; the release of many criminals just before the war; and gunfire by American soldiers, who many Iraqis accuse of opening fire randomly when they feel threatened. ---