The British military has adopted a policy of "zero tolerance" to curb days of looting in the southern city of Basra, writes Jack Fairweather in Basra
Speaking from Central Command headquarters in Qatar, a senior British spokesman, Group Capt Al Lockwood, said: "The general looting that followed will now no longer be tolerated. Law and order will be maintained.
"Obviously we realise that after 25 years under Saddam Hussein's regime there was going to be this sort of exuberance which you saw turned into them taking what they believed they deserved from the regime's buildings. But that time has now past."
On the streets of Basra yesterday, however, violence continued to flare, with officers unaware of any change of policy. Although much reduced, the looting has shifted focus from old Baath Party headquarters to private property, with worried Iraqi resident queuing outside British compounds to report thefts.
Major John Swift, in command of 1st Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, said: "As far as I'm aware the policy is simple. If they've got a gun pointed at us we shoot. But if we're not being threatened, there's little we can do to stop a crowd of people who are intent on looting. The last thing we want to do is replace one repressive regime with another."
One Iraqi man, kneeling outside a British compound, begged to differ.
"Yesterday thieves took all my money at gunpoint," said Mustaph al-Essa, a local lawyer. "The only way to stop these people is to shoot at them. This is the Iraqi way."
Such sentiments will serve to remind British forces of the scale of the task before them in overturning years of repression from Saddam's regime.
A British internment camp at Umm Qasr and a number of holding stations have been set up where civilians suspected of such crimes as rape and murder can be held for 120 days, but for lesser offences suspects are being turned back into the community.
A senior British officer said, "At the moment, we can either hold people in the hope that a functioning legal system will be in place within three months, or slap them on the wrist and tell not them to do it again." The camps have become the scene of frequent escape attempts, with one breakout at a neighbouring POW camp yesterday only thwarted after coalition forces fired warning shots and assured the inmates that the measures were only temporary.