Iraq: May 2, 2003

Archives

As the shock and awe wears off, the Sunni Moslems who have been running Iraq for centuries are reorganizing, rearming and planning their comeback. Heavily Sunni areas, like Tikrit, Mosul and parts of Baghdad, have seen armed resistance to American troops. US forces are fighting back, returning fire and then going after local Baath party leaders and other known Sunni leaders. In areas where there are more non-Sunnis, coalition troops also have to worry about retribution attacks against Sunnis.

The search goes on for Saddam Hussein and his closest aids continues. More of these people are captured every day, but there are many pro-Saddam areas in the country where these people can hide. 

The looting of the Iraqi national museum, initially declared to represent a loss of over 100,000 items, appears to have actually involved only a few dozen. The looting was apparently more of a carefully planned theft, rather than a random looting. Meanwhile, the Iraqi looting of Kuwaiti museums in 1990 took over 2000 items, of which only a few have been recovered.